The enjoyment of life would be instantly gone if you removed the possibility of doing something.

Feast of Pentecost Feast of Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605 It was something more than a glorified Jesus Christ in the heavens in which [the Apostles] believed. In the beginning, John the Baptist had taught his disciples to expect from Christ the baptism -- not of water only, as in his baptism -- but of the Spirit. Before His death, Jesus had sought to fill His disciples' minds with the expectation of this gift... And that Spirit had come in sensible power upon them some ten days after Jesus disappeared for the last time from their eyes... And this Spirit was the Spirit of God, but also, and therefore, the Spirit of Jesus. Jesus was not then merely a past example, or a remote Lord, but an inward presence and power. A mere example in past history becomes in experience a feebler and feebler power... But the example of Jesus was something much more than a memory. For He who had taught them in the past how to live was alive in the heavenly places and was working within them by His Spirit.

For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of pleasure, assuage what I find of pain.

No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face; Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape; This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness.

Feast of Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher, 367 Commemoration of Kentigern (Mungo), Missionary Bishop in Strathclyde & Cumbria, 603 Having made man in His own image, a rational being, He meant him to be lord only over irrational beings: not man set over man, but man set over beasts. The first cause of servitude is sin, by which man is subjected to man by the bonds of his condition... But by that nature in which God formerly created man, nobody is slave either to man or to sin.

To preserve an unclouded capacity for the enjoyment of life is an unusual moral and psychological achievement. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the prerogative of mindlessness, but the exact opposite: It is the reward of self-esteem.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

After enlightenment, the laundry.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause.

The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants.

To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind.

One-half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.

I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

What man would be wise, let him drink of the river That bears on his bosom the record of time; A message to him every wave can deliver To teach him to creep till he knows how to climb.

Let us put Germany, so to speak, in the saddle! you will see that she can ride.

I have only a small flickering light to guide me in the darkness of a thick forest. Up comes a theologian and blows it out.

The rational individualist is not the enemy of benevolence or civility, but their truest exemplar.

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.