*Alexander Pope
Hither the heroes and nymphs resort,
To taste awhile the pleasures of a court;
In various talk th' instuctive hours they past,
Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last;
One speaks the glory of the British Queen,
And one describes a charming Indian screen
A third interprets motions, looks and eyes;
At every word a reputation dies.

*Alfred Lord Tennyson
I hold it true,what'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

*Anon.
People who think by the inch and talk by the yard deserve to be kicked by the foot.

*Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus)
Able Were They Ere They Saw Cable

*Dante Alighieri
Avarice, envy, pride,
Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all
On Fire.
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

*Elizabeth Drew
The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.

*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The shades of night were falling fast,
As though an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!<p>His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

*Hindu Spiritual
If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one --
I am become Death,
The shatterer of Worlds.

*Homer
At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain,
Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain:
Then, Prince! You should have fear'd, what now you feel;
Achilles absent was Achilles still:
Yet a short space the great avenger stayed,
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid.

*Hughes Mearns
As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd stay away.

*Isaiah
And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords
into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more.

*Israel Zangwill
You, the Spirit of the Settlement! ... Not understand that America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot
where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see
them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your
fifty blood hatreds and rivalries...

*Jane Addams
The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

*John Dryden
The people have a right supreme
To make their kings, for Kings are made for them.
All Empire is no more than Pow'r in Trust,
Which when resum'd, can be no longer just.
Successionm for the general good design'd,
In its own wrong a Nation cannot bind.

*John Lennon
Book of Nonsense

*John Milton
Accuse not nature, she hath done her part;
Do thou but thine, and be not diffident
Of wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thou
Dismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh,
By attributing overmuch to things
Less excellent, as thou thyself perceivest.
But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee
Came not all hell broke loose? Is pain to them
Less pain, less to be fled, or thou than they
Less hardy to endure? Courageous chief,
The first in flight from pain, hadst thou alleged
To thy deserted host this cause of flight,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.

*Lord (George Gordon) Byron
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

*Louis Untermeyer
Nothing but blackness above
And nothing that moves but the cars...
God, if you wish for our love,
Fling us a handful of stars!

*Miguel de Cervantes
'Tis an old saying, the Devil lurks behind the cross. All is not gold that glitters. From the tail of the
plough, Bamba was made King of Spain; and from his silks and riches was Rodrigo cast to be devoured by
the snakes.

*Oliver Goldsmith
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter titter'd round the place;
The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love,
The matrons glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village; sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These were thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms -- but all these charms are fled.

*Orson Scott Card
From now on, you forget about gravity before you go through that door. The old gravity is gone, erased.
Understand me? Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember -- the enemy's gate is
down. Your feet are toward the enemy's gate. Up is toward your own gate. North is that way, south is
that way, east is that way, west is -- what way?

*Oscar Wilde
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

*Paul Ambroise Valery
There are two ways to acquire the niceties of life:
1) To produce them or
2) To plunder them.
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for
themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

*Percy Bysshe Shelley
Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches strain,
Deep caves and dreary main, -
Wail, for the world's wrong!

*Peter S. Beagle
The Snake

*Robert Burns
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
A farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.
The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range
Be complaisance extended; An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For deity offended.

*Robert Frost
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.

*Robert Smith Surtees
'Humph!' grunted Mr. Romford, seeing his worst fears about to be realized. He had dreamt that he had
timbled over a poodle in the drawing-room, and squirted a bottle of porter right into a lady's face. 'Who's
goin' besides ourselves?' asked Romford, wishing to know the worst at once. 'Better be killed than
frightened to death,' thought he.

*Rudyard Kipling
On the road to Mandalay
Where the flyin' fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the bay.

*Thomas Gray
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

*TS (Thomas Stearns) Eliot
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

*Virgil
Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even though they bring gifts.
Oh you who are born of the blood of the gods, Trojan son of Anchises, easy is the descent to Hell; the door
of dark Dis stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps and come out to the air above, that is
work, that is labor!

*Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet)
'That is indisputable,' was the answer, 'but in this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time
to time to encourage the others.'

*William Blake
This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.

*William Butler Yeats
You shall go with me, newly-married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude.
White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds,
Feachra of the hurtling form, and him
Who is the ruler of the Western Host,
Finvara, and their Land of Heart's Desire.
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, time an endless song.

*William Shakespeare
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.

*William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
