dead poets society (1989)

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "Oh me! Oh life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, Oh me, Oh life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

"I went to the woods because

I wanted to live deliberately.

I wanted to live deep and

suck out all the marrow of life.

To put to rout all that was not life;

and not, when I had come to die,

discover that I had not lived."

Henry David Thoreau