“In the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites.”

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.

Pens carry further than rifled cannon.

Life lives only in success.

Who thinks, at night, that morn will ever be? Who knows, far out upon the central sea, That anywhere is land? And yet, a shore Has set behind us, and will rise before: A past foretells a future.

Alone each heart must cover up its dead; Alone, through bitter toil, achieve its rest.

And far and wide, in a scarlet tide, The poppy’s bonfire spread.

Learn to live, and live to learn, Ignorance like a fire doth burn, Little tasks make large return.

Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of antiquity in or near it.

So far as female beauty is concerned, the Circassian women have no superiors. They have preserved in their mountain home the purity of the Grecian models, and still display the perfect physical loveliness, whose type has descended to us in the Venus de Medici.

Love’s humility is love’s true pride.

The hollows are heavy and dank With the steam of the Goldenrods.

He teaches best, Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast, And knows their strength or weakness through his own.

I hope that Beyond the Robe helps you to feel closer to the monks and nuns and to better understand their immense potential to provide leadership in their world and further insight into ours.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.