“For your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.”

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what, we know not where.

Silence in times of suffering is the best.

Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.

War is the trade of kings.

Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.

Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

Kings fight for empires, madmen for applause.

Zeal, the blind conductor of the will.

Satire among the Romans, but not among the Greeks, was a bitter invective poem.

Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.

A good conscience is a port which is landlocked on every side, where no winds can possibly invade. There a man may not only see his own image, but that of his Maker, clearly reflected from the undisturbed waters.

He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him.

Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine. Not heaven itself upon the past has power; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay. Tomorrow’s falser than the former day.

Fowls, by winter forced, forsake the floods, and wing their hasty flight to happier lands.

What, start at this! when sixty years have spread. Their grey experience o’er thy hoary head? Is this the all observing age could gain? Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?

Devotion, fervor, longing! Those are my pillars. We have to be the bridge to the future.

In my dreams we got past the parking lot; you took me past the old, oak door, led me up onto the vacant altar, and offered me to every god whose name you invoked as you worshipped my body.

Knowledge without devotion to God produces hatred.

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.

Love combined with wisdom is bliss, and that is devotion. Devotion is a strong bond, a sense of belongingness. Everybody is born with it. It’s just like becoming a child again.

The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

What good is a cow that neither gives milk nor conceives? Similarly, what is the value of the birth of a son if he becomes neither learned nor a pure devotee of the Lord?