"For thence a paradox Which comforts while it mocks, - Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale."

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Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?

— Alexander Pope