“Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off, ’tis being flayed alive.”

Tea – the cups that cheer but not inebriate.

Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in white and black the same.

The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.

Truth is the golden girdle of the globe.

And natural in gesture; much impress’d Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.

There is mercy in every place. And mercy, encouraging thought gives even affliction a grace and reconciles man to his lot.

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.

Great offices will have great talents, and God gives to every man the virtue, temper, understanding, taste, that lifts him into life, and lets him fall just in the niche he was ordained to fill.

Sends Nature forth the daughter of the skies… To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.

Pleasure is labour too, and tires as much.

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

The bird that flutters least is longest on the wing.

Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.

England with all thy faults, I love thee still– My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.

You are a divine being. You matter, you count. You come from realms of unimaginable power and light, and you will return to those realms.

You forget that this has been thirty five years now and people don’t look at it as if it were some kind of oddity.

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.

I’m not playing a role. I’m being myself, whatever the hell that is.

If you give in to intimidation, you’ll go on being intimidated

The traditional face of Africa includes an attitude towards man which can only be described as being socialist

Chimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will.

To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true… I’ve never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.