To strive too with our fate were such a strife As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle: Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstan… - Lord Byron

all who joy would win
Must share it, — Happiness was born a twin.

This should have been a noble creature: he/ Hath all the energy which would have made/ A goodly frame of glorious elements,/ Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,/ It is an awful chaos-light and darkness-/ And mind and dust- and passions and pure thoughts,/ Mix'd, and contending without end or order,/ All dormant or destructive/

Too high for common selfishness, he could
At times resign his own for others’ good,
But not in pity, not because he ought,
But in some strange perversity of thought,
That swayed him onward with a secret pride
To do what few or none would do beside;
And this same impulse would, in tempting time,
Mislead his spirit equally in crime;
So much he soared beyond, or sunk beneath,
The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe,
And longed by good or ill to separate
Himself from all who shared his mortal state.