Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks.
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.