"I too Will go, remembering what I said to you, When any land, the first to which we came Seemed that we sought, and set your hearts aflame, And all seemed won to you: but still I think, Perchance years hence, the fount of life to drink, Unless by some ill chance I first am slain. But boundless risk must pay for boundless gain."

"O servant of the high God, Galahad!"

"Speak but one word to me over the corn, Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn."

"Oh, friends, content you! this is much indeed, And we are paid, thus garnering for our need Your blessings only, bringing in their train God's blessings as the south wind brings the rain. And for the rest, no little thing shall be (Since ye through all yet keep your memory) The gentle music of the bygone years, Long past to us with all their hopes and fears."

"And ever she sung from noon to noon, Two red roses across the moon."

"Across the empty garden-beds, When the Sword went out to sea."

"There were four of us about that bed; The mass-priest knelt at the side, I and his mother stood at the head, Over his feet lay the bride; We were quite sure that he was dead, Though his eyes were open wide."

"My lady seems of ivory Forehead, straight nose, and cheeks that be Hollow'd a little mournfully. Beata mea Domina!"

"He did not die in the night, He did not die in the day. But in the morning twilight His spirit pass'd away."

""You must be very old, Sir Giles," I said; he said: "Yea, very old:" Whereat the mournfullest of smiles Creased his dry skin with many a fold."

"It is the longest night in all the year, Near on the day when the Lord Christ was born; Six hours ago I came and sat down here, And ponder'd sadly, wearied and forlorn."

"Slayer of the Winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the Summer nigh! The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky."

"They hammer'd out my basnet point Into a round salade."

"One of these cloths is heaven, and one is hell, Now choose one cloth for ever; which they be, I will not tell you, you must somehow tell Of your own strength and mightiness."

"And one of these strange choosing cloths was blue, Wavy and long, and one cut short and red; No man could tell the better of the two. After a shivering half-hour you said: 'God help! heaven's colour, the blue;' and he said, 'hell.' Perhaps you then would roll upon your bed, And cry to all good men that loved you well, 'Ah Christ! if only I had known, known, known.'"

"With the arrogance of youth, I determined to do no less than to transform the world with Beauty. If I have succeeded in some small way, if only in one small corner of the world, amongst the men and women I love, then I shall count myself blessed, and blessed, and blessed, and the work goes on."

"Came Launcelot walking; this is true, the kiss Wherewith we kissed in meeting that spring day, I scarce dare talk of the remember'd bliss."

"The reward of labour is life."

"On the fall of Chartism, the Liberal party—which as an engine of progress was a party without principles or definition, but has been used as a thoroughly adequate expression of English middle-class hypocrisy, cowardice, and short-sightedness—engrossed the whole of the political progressive movement in England, and dragged the working classes along with it, blind as they were to their own interests and the solidarity of labour."

"Had she come all the way for this, To part at last without a kiss? Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain That her own eyes might see him slain Beside the haystack in the floods?"

"But lo, the old inn, and the lights, and the fire, And the fiddler's old tune and the shuffling of feet; Soon for us shall be quiet and rest and desire, And to-morrow's uprising to deeds shall be sweet."

"What is this, the sound and rumour? What is this that all men hear, Like the wind in hollow valleys when the storm is drawing near, Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear? 'Tis the people marching on."

"He betrayed the trust reposed in him & used his military & administrative capacity for the purpose of bringing the Soudanese under the subjection of a vile tyranny. To make a hero of such a man is a direct attack on public morality."

"...what I mean by Socialism is a condition of society in which there should be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master's man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brainslack brain workers, nor heartsick hand workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition, and would manage their affairs unwastefully, and with the full consciousness that harm to one would mean harm to all—the realisation at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth."

"The South Sea Islander must leave his canoe-carving, his sweet rest, and his graceful dances, and become the slave of a slave: trousers, shoddy, rum, missionary, and fatal disease — he must swallow all this civilization in a lump, and neither himself nor we can help him now till social order displaces the hideous tyranny of gambling that has ruined him."

"The British Empire is not a thing to love or to be proud of, but a disgrace and a nuisance, as a domination compounded of fraud, injustice and violence to be scorned by all honest men wherever possible."

"Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars."

"Rejoice, lest pleasureless ye die. Within a little time must ye go by. Stretch forth your open hands, and while ye live Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give!"

"What shall I say concerning its mastery of and its waste of mechanical power, its commonwealth so poor, its enemies of the commonwealth so rich, its stupendous organization — for the misery of life! Its contempt of simple pleasures which everyone could enjoy but for its folly? Its eyeless vulgarity which has destroyed art, the one certain solace of labour? All this I felt then as now, but I did not know why it was so. The hope of the past times was gone, the struggles of mankind for many ages had produced nothing but this sordid, aimless, ugly confusion."

"If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

"Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life."

"From out the throng and stress of lies, From out the painful noise of sighs, One voice of comfort seems to rise: "It is the meaner part that dies.""

"The greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere."

"Now such an one for daughter Creon had As maketh wise men fools and young men mad."

"I know a little garden-close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with me wandering."

"Simplicity of life, even the barest, is not a misery, but the very foundation of refinement: a sanded floor and whitewashed walls, and the green trees, and flowery meads, and living waters outside; or a grimy palace amid the smoke with a regiment of housemaids always working to smear the dirt together so that it may be unnoticed; which, think you, is the most refined, the most fit for a gentleman of those two dwellings? So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first — and all this for trifles that no man really needs!"

"O thrush, your song is passing sweet But never a song that you have sung, Is half so sweet as thrushes sang When my dear Love and I were young."

"...I have seen the future of implausible plotting, and his name is Clive Barker."

"I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker."

"Three is the number of those who do holy work; Two is the number of those who do lover's work; One is the number of those who do perfect evil Or perfect good."

"Wert thou more fickle than the restless sea, Still should I love thee, knowing thee for such."

"“Don’t worry,” he told her. “Me?” she said. “I never worry. It’s all going to end badly whether I worry or not.”"

"The majesty That from man's soul looks through his eager eyes."

"I love art, and I love history, but it is living art and living history that I love... It is in the interest of living art and living history that I oppose so-called restoration. What history can there be in a building bedaubed with ornament, which cannot at the best be anything but a hopeless and lifeless imitation of the hope and vigour of the earlier world?"

"“Are you coming?” he said. “In a moment.” “It’s now or never.” Maybe it would be never, then. She was so transfixed by the formidable power being unleashed in front of her, she couldn’t avert her astonished gaze. It fascinated her that strength of this magnitude should be turned to the sordid business of atrocity; something was wrong with a reality that made that possible, and offered no cure for it, nor hope of cure."

"Suzanna didn’t wait for confirmation. There was no use disbelieving the worst now."

"So he believes. The truth may be more...complex."

"As to the remnants of his army—those Seerkind who’d embraced the Prophet’s visions—they’d been the authors of their own punishment, waking from their evangelical nightmare to find it had destroyed all they held dear."

"Always the sightseers: open-mouthed, disbelieving. There was a force for desolation loose in their midst which could consume their lives at a glance, surely they could see that? But they’d watch anyway, willing to embrace the void if it came with sufficient razzmatazz."

"What can be imagined— —need never be lost."