Start There Here

The exceptional is always usual
     And the Usual exceptional.
To choose what is difficult all one's days
As if it were easy, that is faith, Joseph, praise.
— W. H. Auden, For the Time Being, on pp. 131-197 of Collected Longer Poems of W. H. Auden, p. 153.

....began myself to put into practice very insistently, and even with a constant self-derision, that religious philosophical principle known by men for centuries, and according to which our ancestors and even some contemporary people who reached, thanks to their good life, a certain degree of self-consciousness, dedicated a third of each year of their life — depending on which part would least interfere with the obligation of their ordinary life, — for self-perfection or, as they say, for "saving their souls"; this principle could be formulated in this way: "TO - BE - PATIENT - TOWARDS - EVERY - BEING - AND - NOT - TO- ATTEMPT - BY - THE - POSSIBILITY - IN - OUR - POWER - TO - ALTER - THE - CONSEQUENCES - OF - THE - EVIL - DEEDS - OF - OUR - NEIGHBORS," .....
— G. Gurdjieff, Herald of the Coming Good, p. 67.
cf. Christ's "resist not evil."

     "Marshlands," I began, "is the story of the neutral ground which belongs to everybody... — or, to put it better, it's about the normal man, the foundation on which everyone begins — it's the story of the third person, he of whom one speaks, — who lives in each of us, but dies not when we die. — In Virgil he is called Tityrus — and we are expressly told that he is lying down — 'Tityrus recubans.'" Marshlands is the story of the man who lies down."
     "I say," said Petras, "— I thought it was the story of a bog."
     "Sir," said I, "opinions differ, the essence endures. Try to understand I beg of you, that the way of telling the same thing to everyone — I say, mark you, the same thing, is to change its form to suit each new mind that receives it. — At the present moment, Marshlands is the story of Angela's drawing-room."
— André Gide, Marshlands and Pronetheus Misbound (Two Satires), Painter (tr.), p. 50.

....Art consists in depicting a particular subject with sufficient power for the generality on which it depended to be comprehended in it. This can only be expressed very badly in abstract terms, because it is itself an abstract thought — but you will, assuredly, take my meaning, if you think of all the enormous landscape that passes through a keyhole, as soon as the eye gets near enough to the door. A person who sees nothing there but a keyhole, would see the whole world through it, if only he thought of bending down. It is enough that there should be the possibility of generalization; to make that generalization is the part of the reader, the critic."
— André Gide, Ibid., pp. 51-52.

Where dost thou stand behind them all, my lover, hiding thyself in the shadows? They push thee and pass thee by on the dusty road, taking thee for naught. I wait here weary hours spreading my offerings for thee, while passers by come and take my flowers, one by one, and my basket is nearly empty.
     The morning time is past, and the noon. In the shade of evening my eyes are drowsy with sleep. Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not.
     Oh, how, indeed, could I tell them that for thee I wait, and that thou hast promised to come. How could I utter for shame that I keep for my dowry this poverty. Ah, I hug this pride in the secret of my heart.
     I sit on the grass and gaze upon the sky and dream of the sudden splendour of thy coming — all the lights ablaze, golden pennons flying over the car, and they at the roadside standing agape, when they see thee come down from thy seat to raise me from the dust, and set at thy side this ragged beggar girl a-tremble with shame and pride, like a creeper in a summer breeze.
     But time glides on and still no sound of the wheels of thy chariot. Many a procession passes by with noise and shouts and glamour of glory. Is it only thou who wouldst stand in the shadow silent and behind them all? And only I who would wait and weep and wear out my heart in vain longing?
— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali (Song Offerings), 41, pp. 32-34.