“It is not a merit to tolerate, but rather a crime to be intolerant.”

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.

Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone.

Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these All things are subject but eternal love.

I wish no living thing to suffer pain.

I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins, where black death Keeps record of the trophies won.

There Is No God. This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.

The jealous keys of truth’s eternal doors.

Music, when soft voices die Vibrates in the memory.

Fame, power, and gold, are loved for their own sakes – are worshipped with a blind, habitual idolatry.

All love is sweet Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

Heaven’s ebon vault Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread To curtain her sleeping world.

I have been a wanderer among distant fields. I have sailed down mighty rivers.

When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead – When the cloud is scattered The rainbow’s glory is shed.

Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.

Out of the doctrine of original sin grew the crimes and miseries of asceticism, celibacy and witchcraft; woman becoming the helpless victim of all these delusions.

All issues of crime are better addressed at the state level.

The supreme crime of the church to-day is that everywhere and in all its operations and influences it is on the side of sloth of mind; that it banishes brains, it sanctifies stupidity, it canonizes incompetence.

Hate crimes are the scariest thing in the world because these people really believe what they’re doing is right.

The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor.

In the name of religion many great and fine deeds have been performed. In the name of religion also, thousands and millions have been killed, and every possible crime has been committed.

I’m sure anyone who likes a good crime, provided it is not the victim.

And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?