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If we accept the fact that man is as predestined to suffer as to enjoy life, that both experiences have been allotted to him, sometimes in juxtaposition but more often in rhythm, we can better prepare ourselves for life. If we refuse to accept it, we may have to pay the price which Oscar Wilde had to pay. The same Wilde, who until he was forty years old said that he did not know what it felt like to be unhappy, who repeatedly said, "We should seek the joys of life and leave the sores alone," lived to utter this confession and commentary upon his earlier attitude: "I seem dead to all emotions except those of anguish and despair."

-- Notebooks Category 9: From Birth to Rebirth > Chapter 3 : Laws and Patterns of Experience > # 310