The hidden yes, the mastered no

Nietzsche from The Gay Science (the Walter Kaufmann translation):

… for their faith they willingly sacrificed possessions and position, blood and fatherland. We—do the same. For what? For our unbelief? For every kind of unbelief? No, you know better than that, friends! The hidden Yes in you is stronger than all the Nos and Maybes that afflict you and your age like a disease; and when you have to embark on the sea, you emigrants, you, too, are compelled to this by—a faith!

Ocean Vuong in “The Last Dinosaur,” published days before another catastrophic IPCC report:

I didn’t know God saw in us a failed

attempt at heaven. Didn’t know my eyes

had three shades of white but only one image

of my mother. She’s standing under an ancient

pine, sad that her time on Earth is all she owns.

Oh human, I’m not mad at you for winning

but that you never wished for more. Lord

of language, why didn’t you master No

without forgetting Yes?