Only supreme in misery!
WE know no time when we were not as now...
I thence invoke my thy aid to my adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar above the Aonian mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
He who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attained the utmost prospect of reformation that the mortal glass wherein we contemplate can show us, till we come to beatific vision, that man by this very opinion declares that he is yet far short of truth.
All is best, though we oft doubt, what the unsearchable dispose, of highest wisdom brings about.
The goal of all learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents.
Who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
But his doom 54: Reserv’d him to more wrath; for now the thought 55: Both of lost happiness and lasting pain 56: Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes 57: That witness’d huge affliction and dismay 58: Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate:.
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture dignity and love.
Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold.
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
He who destroys a good book kills reason itself.
For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.
Solitude is sometimes best society.
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Beauty is Nature’s coin, must not be hoarded, But must be current, and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss.
The end of all learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love and imitate Him.
He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.