“With rushing winds and gloomy skies The dark and stubborn Winter dies: Far-off, unseen, Spring faintly cries, Bidding her earliest child arise; March!”

Sometimes an hour of Fate’s serenest weather Strikes through our changeful sky its coming beams; Somewhere above us, in elusive ether, Waits the fulfilment of our dearest dreams.

Death is not rare, alas! nor burials few, And soon the grassy coverlet of God Spreads equal green above their ashes pale.

The stream from Wisdom’s well, Which God supplies, is inexhaustible.

Love is better than Fame.

Sweeter than the stolen kiss Are the granted kisses

From the desert I come to thee, On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire.

Peace the offspring is of Power.

The bravest are the most tender; the loving are the daring.

The Poet’s leaves are gathered one by one, In the slow process of the doubtful years.

To learn by observation is traveling, people must also bring knowledge with them.

London has the advantage of one of the most gloomy atmospheres in the world.

Labor, you know, is prayer.

Above Coblentz almost every mountain has a ruin and a legend. One feels everywhere the spirit of the past, and its stirring recollections come back upon the mind with irresistible force.

Mock jewelry on a woman is tangible vulgarity.

Melrose is the finest remaining specimen of Gothic architecture in Scotland. Some of the sculptured flowers in the cloister arches are remarkably beautiful and delicate, and the two windows – the south and east oriels – are of a lightness and grace of execution really surprising.

The nearest approach I have ever seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.

Inching one’s way along a steep cliff in the dark: on reaching the highway, one breathes a sigh of relief. Just when one can’t take any more, one sees the moonlight. Beauty that seems to infuse itself into the heart: I know about that

I was being called to surrender the very citadel of my self. I was completely in the dark. I did not really know what repentance was or what I was required to repent of. It was indeed the turning point of my life.

I like to get dark sometimes and then come back out into the light.

There is little faith involved in setting out on a journey where the destination is certain and every step in between has been mapped in detail. Bravery, trust, is about leaving camp in the dark, when we do not know the route ahead and cannot be certain we will ever return.

Here and there the dark brine gushed with foam, Roaring terribly through the strength of the mighty men.

I trailed off.Patch leaned lazily against the counter. Dark hair flipped out from under his ball cap. A smile tugged at his mouth. My thoughts dissolved and just like that, a new thought broke the surface of my mind. I wanted to kiss him. Right now.

So to the lyre of Orpheus they struck with their oars, The furious water of the sea, and the surge broke into waves.

Storms and darkness scared me, but somehow it encouraged me to learn about nature and I think nothing’s dark, dark is beautiful too.