If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.

It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.

I saw two clouds at morning Tinged by the rising sun, And in the dawn they floated on And mingled into one.

There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. -Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.

If... you are ever tempted to think that we modern Western Europeans cannot really be so very bad because we are, comparatively speaking, humane -- if, in other words, you think God might be content with us on that ground -- ask yourself whether you think God ought to have been content with the cruelty of past ages because they excelled in courage or chastity. You will see at once that this is an impossibility. From considering how the cruelty of our ancestors looks to us, you may get some inkling of how our softness, worldliness, and timidity would have looked to them, and hence how both must look to God.

Fashion can be bought. Style one must possess.

Like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.

In poison there is physic; and these news, Having been well, that would have made me sick, Being sick, have in some measure made me well.

I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

'Tis not the robe or garment I affect; For who would marry with a suit of clothes?

And pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.

An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.

Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.

To be rational is so glorious a thing, that two-legged creatures generally content themselves with the title.

Continuing a short series about the early church: As to the Emperor and the charge of high treason against us, Caesar's safety lies not in hands soldered on. We invoke the true God for the Emperor. Even if he persecute us, we are bidden to pray for them that persecute us, as you can read in our books, which are not hidden, which you often get hold of. We pray for him because the Empire lies between us and the end of the world. We count the Caesars to be God's vice-regents and swear by their safety (not by their genius, as required). As for loyalty, Caesar really is more ours than yours; for it was our God who set him up. It is for his own good, that we refuse to call the Emperor God; Father of his Country is a better title. No Christian has ever made a plot against a Caesar; the famous conspirators and assassins were heathen, one and all. Piety, religion, faith are our best offering of loyalty.

Feast of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, Teacher, 397 Moreover, you are not to ask what each man's desserts are. Mercy is not ordinarily held to consist in pronouncing judgment on another man's deserts, but in relieving his necessities; in giving aid to the poor, not in inquiring how good they are. .. St. Ambrose December 8, 1997 There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of the present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of others. I am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out more than is expedient to meet one man's taste and another man's prejudices. The ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it should find in us a simple habit of spirit and a holy but humble indifference to all consequences. A leading defect in Christian ministers is want of a devotional habit.