"In The Life of Poetry, Muriel Rukeyser writes that the "images of history" can "reach us imaginatively." She continues: "The life of Jesus; the life of Buddha; the life of Lincoln, or Gandhi, or Saint Francis of Assisi — these give us the intensity that should be felt in a lifetime of concentration, a lifetime which seems to risk the immortal meanings every day... These lives, in their search and purpose, offer their form, offer their truths. They reach us as hope." The hope is not that suffering will go away, for with Lincoln it did not ever go away. The hope is that suffering, plainly acknowledged and endured, can fit us for the surprising challenges that await."
- Joshua Wolf Shenk (Lincoln's Melancholy - How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness)
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