For seldom shall she hear a tale So said, so tender, yet so true.

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

I wear my wife's eyeglasses because she wants me to see things her way.

Commemoration of Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking, 675 The valley of the shadow of death holds no darkness for the child of God. There must be light, else there could be no shadow. Jesus is the light. He has overcome death.

Blessed is the wooing That is not long a-doing.

Two starving men cannot be twice as hungry as one; but two rascals can be ten times as vicious as one.

The great question for us now is, Do we believe in that love of God which Christ taught by His words, and of which His followers saw in His voluntary death a crowning manifestation? And remember that even belief in the love of God will do us no good unless it awakes answering love in ourselves -- unless it adds to our hatred of the sin which separates us from God and increases our love of other men.

Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrowe is in vaine, For violets pluckt, the sweetest showers Will ne'er make grow againe.

Feast of the Conversion of Paul If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of learning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical. You would be surprised if you knew how soon one begins to feel the shortness of the tether: of how many things, even in middle life, we have to say, "No time for that", "Too late now" and "Not for me". But Nature herself forbids you [young people] to share that experience. A more Christian attitude, which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God's hands. We may as well, for God will certainly retain it whether we leave it to Him or not.

And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scripture?

I've been on a calendar, but I've never been on time.

His ignorance is encyclopedic.

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasure imaginary.

Give me a child for the first seven years, and you may do what you like with him afterwards.

When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity- but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: When a man has had so much benefit from the gospel, as to know his own misery, his want of a redeemer, who he is, and how is he to be found; there everything seems to be done, both to awaken and direct his prayer, and make it a true praying in and by the Spirit. For when the heart really pants and longs after God, its prayer is a praying, as moved and animated by the Spirit of God; it is the breath or inspiration of God, stirring, moving and opening itself in the heart. For though the early nature, our old man, can oblige or accustom himself to take heavenly words at certain times into his mouth, yet this is a certain truth, that nothing ever did, or can have the least desire or tendency to ascend to heaven, but that which came down from heaven; and therefore nothing in the heart can pray, aspire, and long after God, but the Spirit of God moving and stirring in it.

The South Wind has for the evening donned jasmine scent.

Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to paradise By the stairway of surprise.

Great things are only possible with outrageous requests.