Robert Frost on the Nature of Life's Persistence

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way.

On February 8, 1828, a boy was born in Nantes, France, who would grow up to predict submarines, helicopters, space travel, and video calls — all without a single engineering degree. Jules Verne didn't just write science fiction. He wrote the blueprint for the twentieth century, and the engineers who built it openly admitted they were cribbing from his novels. Today marks 198 years since his birth, and we're still catching up to his imagination.

On February 10, 1837, Alexander Pushkin bled out on a couch after getting shot in the gut by a French pretty-boy who was flirting with his wife. He was 37. That's younger than most people when they finally start their "I should write a novel" phase. And yet, nearly two centuries later, this man's fingerprints are all over modern literature, opera, film, and even the way Russians think about love, honor, and really bad decisions. Here's the uncomfortable truth: Pushkin accomplished more in his truncated life than most writers could in three lifetimes with unlimited coffee and noise-canceling headphones.