“There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass.”

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Love is the only gold.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, for those that were here we see no more.

Ah, when shall all men’s good Be each man’s rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro’ all the circle of the golden year?

For love reflects the thing beloved.

Thou madest man, he knows not why, he thinks he was not made to die.

What the sunshine is to the flower, the Lord Jesus Christ is to my soul.

And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.

I can’t be anonymous by reason of your confounded photographs. (To Julia Margaret Cameron)

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.

Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.

A still small voice spake unto me, ‘Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?

Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die.

The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower.

Look how wildflowers bloom from your skin. So why hold back those tears when your soil needs them?

Like a flower, that hides from the sun and discovers it still grows and blooms, I am learning that I too, can survive the dark, without you.

I’m a bit of a like girly-girl, really, I like flowery stuff.

All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower.

Start edifying the flowers. Stop pointing out the weeds.

The flowers don’t get to choose when they die. But oh boy, when they live they are beautiful.

It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can’t close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart.