"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!"

"Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe, A tale of folly and of wasted life, Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife, Ending, where all things end, in death at last."

"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."

"O servant of the high God, Galahad!"

"Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?"

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

"Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain; In some wise may come ending to my pain; It may be yet the Gods will have me glad! Yet, Love, I would that thee and pain I had!"

"Upon the floor uncounted medals lay Like things of little value; here and there Stood golden caldrons, that might well outweigh The biggest midst an emperor's copper-ware, And golden cups were set on tables fair, Themselves of gold; and in all hollow things Were stored great gems, worthy the crowns of kings."

"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."

"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?"

"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.'"

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

"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."

"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."

""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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The reward of labour is life."

"...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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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!"

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"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.""

"So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"There was such sanity in his voice; a politician’s sanity, as he sold his flock the wisdom of the bomb. This soulless certainty was more chilling than hysteria or malice."

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

"“Don’t be sentimental,” he chided. “Memories aren’t enough.” It was fruitless to argue the niceties of that: he was telling her that he was in pain; he didn’t want platitudes or metaphysics."

"She told him she made a rule of never marrying bankers. The next day he sent flowers, and a note saying that he’d relinquished his profession."

"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."

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

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

"Life and wisdom. What more could anybody ask?"