To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.

There is in God - some say - A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear. O for that Night! where I in Him Might live invisible and dim!

I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm as it was bright.

Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep. So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted dreams, And into glory peep.

Death, and darkness get you packing, Nothing now to man is lacking, All your triumphs now are ended, And what Adam marred, is mended.

The skin and shell of things Though fair are not Thy wish nor prayer but got My meer despair of wings.

They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.

The sun doth shake Light from his locks, and, all the way Breathing perfumes, doth spice the day.

Affliction is a mother, Whose painful throes yield many sons, Each fairer than the other.

Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest And passage through these looms God ordered motion, but ordained no rest.

In this era in which we live, the old-fashioned virtues grow increasingly unpopular.

cultivate in young minds an equal love of the good, the beautiful and the absurd; most people's lives are too lead-colored to lose the smallest twinkle of light from a flash of nonsense.

Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities. What we take into our lives changes us. Without new people and new ideas, we are imprisoned inside ourselves.

Robert Kagan said the neocons couldn't get a better president than Hillary Clinton, who would enforce the neocon foreign policy. No one's questioned it.

You’ve got to try and take things to the next level, or you’ll just get stuck in a rut.

The most shocking act, closely examined, is just a louder version of some habitual gesture.

In order not to end up like the masses out there who are merely wandering and unsure of their goals and dreams, your objective must be clear. When your purpose is clear, your life will have meaning.

An easy thing, O Power Divine, To thank thee for these gifts of Thine, For summer's sunshine, winter's snow, For hearts that kindle thoughts that glow.

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.