“Love withers under constraints: its very essence is liberty: it is compatible neither with obedience, jealousy, nor fear.”

I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, when the winds are breathing low, and the stars are shining bright.

The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.

Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, – but it returneth!

Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you Ye are many-they are few.

The howl of self-interest is loud but the heart is black which throbs solely to its note.

The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset’s fire.

History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man.

Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.

Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their age.

Love’s very pain is sweet.

A single word even may be a spark of inextinguishable thought.

Sing again, with your dear voice revealing. A tone Of some world far from ours, where music and moonlight and feeling are one.

Hell is a city much like London A populous and smoky city.

All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.

A sensitive plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan like leaves to the light, and closed them beneath the kisses of night.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

If we live in our oneness-heart, we will feel the essence of all religions which is the love of God. Forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, brotherhood and the feeling of oneness are the signs of a true religion.

The essence of generosity is letting go. Pain is always a sign that we are holding on to something – usually ourselves.

Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do.

It is God who is the ultimate reason things, and the Knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of things.

Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!

We cannot save people. But we can love them. And this is the highest expression of our essence.

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.

When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.