"Time wears all his locks before, Take thy hold upon his forehead; When he flies he turns no more, And behind his scalp is naked. Works adjourn'd have many stays, Long demurs breed new delays."

"Shun delays, they breed remorse; Take thy time while time is lent thee; Creeping snails have weakest force, Fly their fault lest thou repent thee. Good is best when soonest wrought, Linger’d labours come to nought."

"In Aman's pomp poor Mardocheus wept, Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe; The Lazar pined while Dives' feast was kept, Yet he to heaven, to hell did Dives go. We trample grass and prize the flowers of May, Yet grass is green when flowers do fade away."

"Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, A brief wherein all marvels summèd lie, Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more."

"Grant me grace, O God! that I My life may mend, sith I must die."

"Though all the East did quake to hear Of Alexander's dreadful name, And all the West did likewise fear To hear of Julius Cæsar's fame."

"Not Solomon, for all his wit, Nor Samson, though he were so strong, No king nor person ever yet Could 'scape, but Death laid him along."

"Before my face the picture hangs, That daily should put me in mind Of those cold names and bitter pangs, That shortly I am like to find: But yet, alas! full little I Do think hereon that I must die."

"When Fortune smiles, I smile to think How quickly she will frown."

"To rise by others' fall I deem a losing gain; All states with others' ruins built To ruin run amain."

"I feel no care of coin, Well-doing is my wealth; My mind to me an empire is, While grace affordeth health."

"My conscience is my crown, Contented thoughts my rest; My heart is happy in itself, My bliss is in my breast. Enough I reckon wealth; A mean the surest lot, That lies too high for base contempt, Too low for envy's shot."

"The saddest birds a season find to sing, The roughest storm a calm may soon allay; Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all, That men may hope to rise yet fear to fall."

"No joy so great but runneth to an end, No hap so hard but may in fine amend."

"Times go by turns and chances change by course, From foul to fair, from better hap to worse."

"My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns; Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals; The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls."

"As in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty babe all burning bright did in the air appear."

"This stable is a prince's court, The crib his chair of state; The beasts are parcel of his pomp, The wooden dish his plate."

"Imagine that leader of all the enemy, in that great plain of Babylon, sitting on a sort of throne of smoking flame, a horrible and terrifying sight. Watch him calling together countless devils, to despatch them into different cities till the whole world is covered, forgetting no province or locality, no class or single individual."

"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me."

"The picture. A great plain, comprising the entire Jerusalem district, where is the supreme Commander-in-Chief of the forces of good, Christ our Lord: another plain near Babylon, where Lucifer is, at the head of the enemy."

"The safest and most suitable form of penance seems to be that which causes pain in the flesh but does not penetrate to the bones, that is, which causes suffering but not sickness. So the best way seems to be to scourge oneself with thin cords which hurt superficially, rather than to use some other means which might produce serious internal injury."

"Let me look at the foulness and ugliness of my body. Let me see myself as an ulcerous sore running with every horrible and disgusting poison."

"Up to his twenty-sixth year the heart of Ignatius was enthralled by the vanities of the world. His special delight was in the military life, and he seemed led by a strong and empty desire of gaining for himself a great name."

"Exitus acta probat."

"For those who believe, no words are necessary. For those who do not believe, no words are possible."

"Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man."

"Protestant success, at first amazingly rapid, was checked mainly as a resultant of Loyola's creation of the Jesuit order."

"He said it himself, he sinned long and hard, to quote Luther; his conversion was total, his expiation very long, accompanied by a love of life and works, including the foundation of a Company that after 400 years is still one of the pillars of our Church."

"Out of this crucible of trial, self-examination, and anguished yearning for peace and light there emerged in Iñigo de Loyola that balance of spirit and matter, of mind and body, of mystical contemplation and pragmatic action that has ever since been recognized as typically and specifically "Ignatian," as distinct from the spirituality of, say, St. Benedict or St. Dominic or St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila."

"[Friends of order] are often heard to say that the Jesuits must be reestablished. Without disputing the merits of this order, one must say that this suggestion for their reestablishment indicates a lack of deep reflection. Do they mean that St Ignatius is at hand ready to serve our purposes? If the order were destroyed, perhaps it could be reestablished by some lay brother with the same inspiration that created it originally, but all the sovereigns in the world would never succeed."

"Ignatius, for understandable reasons, is the saint I know better than any other. He founded our Order. … Jesuits were and still are the leavening — not the only one but perhaps the most effective — of Catholicism: culture, teaching, missionary work, loyalty to the Pope. But Ignatius who founded the Society, was also a reformer and a mystic. Especially a mystic. … They have been fundamental. A religion without mystics is a philosophy. … I love the mystics; Francis also was in many aspects of his life, but I do not think I have the vocation and then we must understand the deep meaning of that word. The mystic manages to strip himself of action, of facts, objectives and even the pastoral mission and rises until he reaches communion with the Beatitudes. Brief moments but which fill an entire life."

"We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchical Church defines it thus."

"The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit."

"I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, at Paris; what have I learned? The language of doubt; but in me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men."

"Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?"

"The tension of Hopkins is nearer to activity: it is activity, muscular, violent, and formal."

"There are basically three kinds of poetry: first, poetry which is divine (inspired); secondly, poetry which is crafted; and thirdly, poetry which is inherited. It reminds me of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He has a letter to a friend of his in which he speaks of writing and how there are three voices of the poet: the Olympian (inspired); the Parnassian (when you're really a good poet, you don't write bad poetry but sometimes you write so-so poetry), and finally, there's jargon."