As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I suffer also from sloth.

Many dishes many diseases, Many medicines few cures.

Depression is a feeling without a cause. Mourning has a cause.

I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn't one I'll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it's worth it.

A disability that is not apparent in the person’s appearance is no less intrusive, no less painful, no less disturbing than one that can be spotted across the room. And, yet, many people fail to respect the tremendous impact that the invisible disability has on the human enduring it.

[But can Tolstoy, Melville or Austen actually cure depression? Can they rid you of anxiety? Un-stress your mind?] I'm skeptical of the ability -- the literal ability -- of literature to heal, ... But there's another part of me that says, 'Who knows?' So much of medicine is reliant upon rhetoric.