Solitude has but few sacrifices to make, and may be innocent, but can hardly be greatly virtuous like Abraham, like Job, like the Roman Regulus or the Apostle Paul. Great actions, from their nature, are not done in the closet; they are performed in the face of the sun, and in behalf of the world… [...]
The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be. E. A. Poe
O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results [...]
O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, [...]
I Struck the board, and cry’d, No more. I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? My lines and life are free; free as the rode, Loose as the winde, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me bloud, and not [...]
O ETERNAL and most gracious God, who art able to make, and dost make, the sick bed of thy servants chapels of ease to them, and the dreams of thy servants prayers and meditations upon thee, let not this continual watchfulness of mine, this inability to sleep, which thou hast laid upon me, be any [...]
for T.W. Power stepped into his hiding place: at once a presence he could not mistake. He begged the Angel—pure, erect, ablaze— to leave him as he was. He would forsake all his ambitions; it was best he stayed that baffled, over-traveled man of trade. He’d never learned his letters…and now such a word! For [...]
A little philosophy makes men aetheists: A great deal reconciles them to religion. Francis Bacon
I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me. A nearby field, a ray of sunlight, a little bit of calm along with a bit of bread, not to feel oppressed by the knowledge that I exist, not to demand anything from others, and not to have others demand anything [...]
Every deed and every relationship is surrounded by an atmosphere of silence. Friendship needs no words- it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness. Dag Hammarskjöld
