“Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.”

While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.

Pleasure admitted in undue degree, enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour;

Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.

Time, as he passes us, has a dove’s wing, Unsoil’d, and swift, and of a silken sound.

Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it.

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have oft-times no connection.

Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway, We feel it e’en in age, and at our latest day.

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.

The Israeli aggression on Gaza does not bring peace to Israel. We know that. We want end of occupation.

Of course some days are easier than others, but my worst day is better than being in most humdrum occupations.

Writing is a solitary occupation.

Politics is a thankless occupation; I have no interest in it at all.

Lebanon was under Israeli occupation, up to its capital, but we did not consider that a disaster. Why? Because it was very clear that there are ways to resist.

The problem is not the occupation, but how people deal with it.

Absence of occupation is not rest.

As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems.