“No government has ever been, or can ever be, wherein time-servers and blockheads will not be uppermost.”

So softly death succeeded life in her, She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.

Fool that I was, upon my eagle’s wings I bore this wren, till I was tired with soaring, and now he mounts above me.

Death ends our woes, and the kind grave shuts up the mournful scene.

He who would search for pearls must dive below.

But love’s a malady without a cure.

We must beat the iron while it is hot, but we may polish it at leisure.

I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty.

There is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know.

None are so busy as the fool and the knave.

Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are.

He who would pry behind the scenes oft sees a counterfeit.

Sure there’s contagion in the tears of friends.

All authors to their own defects are blind.

A farce is that in poetry which grotesque (caricature) is in painting. The persons and actions of a farce are all unnatural, and the manners false, that is, inconsistent with the characters of mankind; and grotesque painting is the just resemblance of this.

Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.

All delays are dangerous in war.

I embrace everybody, but you work everybody and each song at a time to who it is for. I believe that’s how you build a palace. You build a palace one block at a time and then you’ll have what you want. That’s how it goes.

The basic building block of peace and security for all peoples is economic and social security, anchored in sustainable development. It is a key to all problems. Why? Because it allows us to address all the great issues-poverty, climate, environment and political stability-as parts of the whole.

Fear and fatigue block the mind. Face both, then courage and confidence flows into you.

I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

Kids have what I call a built-in hypocrisy antenna that comes up and blocks out what you’re saying when you’re being a hypocrite.

The obstacles in our path are not blocking us-they are redirecting us. Their purpose is not to interfere with our happiness; it is to point us toward new routes to our happiness, new possibilities, new doorways.

You try to become the character that you’re working with. So for me, I try to block out the cameras and try to trick my mind that this is actually happening.

the innate respect for human lives, the intense humanity that is our heritage, the African race, united under one federal government, will emerge not as just another world bloc to flaunt its wealth and strength.