“I am out of humanity’s reach.I must finish my journey alone,Never hear the sweet music of speech;I start at the sound of my own.”

To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think.

Blest be the art that can immortalize,–the art that baffles time’s tyrannic claim to quench it.

Far happier are the dead methinks than they who look for death and fear it every day.

No traveler e’er reached that blest abode who found not thorns and briers in his road.

Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains.

Would I describe a preacher, I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,

A heretic, my dear sir, is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about.

Unless a love of virtue light the flame,

War’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

Restraining prayer, we cease to fight; Prayer keeps the Christian’s armor bright; And Satan trembles when he sees The weakest saint upon his knees.

Built God a church and laughed His word to scorn.

All we behold is miracle.

Still ending, and beginning still.

Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.

Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid, In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.

Grief is itself a medicine.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

Love is a war of lightning, and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.

The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer.

Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

Clear and sweet is my soul, clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!

The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.

Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you’ll have to eat them, you can swallow it well.