I am certain that to preach the wrath of God with a hard heart, a cold lip, a tearless eye, and an unfeeling spirit is to harden men, not benefit them.
And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd For one fair female, lost him half the kind.
For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.
Errors like straws upon the surface flow, Who would search for pearls to be grateful for often must dive below.
The love of liberty with life is given, And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven.
Luxurious kings are to their people lost, They live like drones, upon the public cost.
Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, Yet, sprung from high, is of celestial seed: In God 'tisglory; and when men aspire, 'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire.
Every something is an echo of nothing
Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother's nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. . . . The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others.
If the motion of the earth were circular, it would be violent and contrary to nature, and could not be eternal, since nothing violent is eternal. It follows, therefore, that the earth is not moved with a circular motion.
Art is long. Life is short. A picture can become for us a highway between a particular thing and a universal feeling.