We shall not cease from exploration | And the end of all our exploring | Will be to arrive where we started | And know the place for the first time | Through the unknown, remembered gate (T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding)

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,


Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
What's not believed in, or if still believed,

In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what's thought can be dispensed with

Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues

Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes (Thomas Stearns Eliot, Gerontion)