"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."

"The darkest night that ever fell upon the earth never hid the light, never put out the stars. It only made the stars more keenly, kindly glancing, as if in protest against the darkness."

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact."

"I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear."

"Apropos of the "The Lifted Veil," I think it will not be judicious to reprint it at present. I care for the idea which it embodies, and which justifies its painfulness. A motto which I wrote on it yesterday perhaps is a sufficient indication of that idea: —"

"'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio."

"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry."

"I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best."

"I wish to use my last hours of ease and strength in telling the strange story of my experience. I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow-men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven — the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it — it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition — make haste — oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still — "ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit" the eye will cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them."

"If art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally."

"My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy."

"The real drama of Evangelicalism—and it has abundance of fine drama for any one who has genius enough to discern and reproduce it—lies among the middle and lower classes; and are not Evangelical opinions understood to give an especial interest in the weak things of the earth, rather than in the mighty?"

"Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with thy choir of saints forevermore, I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before."

"What if this present were the world's last night?"

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."

"Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke."

"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me."

"If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?"

"All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain."

"At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go."

"I am a little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelic sprite."

"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die."

"Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. O, my America, my Newfoundland My kingdom, safest when with one man mann's, My mine of precious stones, my empery; How am I blest in thus discovering thee ! To enter in these bonds, is to be free ; Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.""

"Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee, As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be, To taste whole joys."

"O my America! my new-found land."

"Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright."

"The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests."

"Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick."

"The heavens rejoice in motion, why should I Abjure my so much loved variety."

"No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one autumnal face."

"She, and comparisons are odious."

"Nature's lay idiot, I taught thee to love."

"Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies."

"Absence, hear thou my protestation Against thy strength, Distance, and length; Do what thou canst for alteration"

"When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust."

"Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers, and their map, who lie Flat on this bed."

"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend."

"We understood Her by her sight; her pure, and eloquent blood Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, That one might almost say, her body thought."

"And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and the earth, and no man's wit, Can well direct him where to look for it. And freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmament They seek so many new; then see that this Is crumbled out again to his atomies. 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; All just supply, and all relation: Prince, subject, Father, Son, are things forgot."

"Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; For, thus friends absent speak."

"Ah cannot we As well as cocks and lions jocund be, After such pleasures?"

"So, so, break off this last lamenting kiss, Which sucks two souls, and vapors both away."

"Take heed of loving me."

"A bracelet of bright hair about the bone."

"Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; The mystery, the sign you must not touch, For 'tis my outward soul, Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control, And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution."

"To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love."

"I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born."

"Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book."

"That subtle knot which makes us man: So must pure lovers' souls descend T' affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great Prince in prison lies."

"We then, who are this new soul, know Of what we are composed and made, For the' atomies of which we grow Are souls, whom no change can invade. But oh alas, so long, so far, Our bodies why do we forbear? They're ours, though they're not we; we are The intelligences, they the spheres."