“Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sun-like, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.”

The world is knowable, harmonious, and good.

As in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life.

In actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.

Become vision itself.

As the eye waits on the rising of the Sun which in its own time appears above the horizon and gives itself to our sight.

And this is the life of the Gods, and of Godlike men, a life without love of the world, a flight of the Alone to the Alone.

The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky.

Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts.

In this state of absorbed contemplation, there is no longer any question of holding an object in view.

There is one and the same soul in many bodies.

Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too.

If someone with the right conduct tries to attain to something that lies outside of it, is his goal not the right conduct.

Life here with the things of the earth is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of the wing.

Before we had our becoming here, we existed There, men other than now; we were pure souls.

One word was uttered and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing.

It is bad enough to be condemned to drag around this image in which nature has imprisoned me.

One’s eyes are what one is, one’s mouth is what one becomes.

If anything becomes more fundamental than God to your happiness, meaning of life, and identity then it is an idol.

Jesus Christ did not suffer so that you would not suffer. He suffered so that when you suffer, you’ll become more like him.

Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world.

I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.

Luckily your lifetime warranty on your heart is still in effect. Of course, that becomes void and expires when you do.

I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual.

You are some kind of a mystery suspended between two eternities. And in that moment, when a mind looks out at a world and asks the question, ‘What is it?’ In that moment art can be created.