Out, Majnu! Trouble me no more with your mad passion, thou sickly pessimist. Love is the product of will, and yours is a will to death.

Lord, show me only what I need.

Lord, save me from ever getting what I want.

Lord, deliver me from the thrall of that jejune incoherence that masquerades as reason -- better, let me live with disciplined derangement.

"Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening."
-- Seneca, Epistles (10:5)

"He had not enough talent for his genius."

Lord, let me never deserve such derogation.

"He was wrong, sometimes."

Lord, let me deserve such praise when I'm dead.

Lord, let my vision be long.

But only when I need it to be.