“My own dim life should teach me this,That life shall live for evermore,Else earth is darkness at the core,And dust and ashes all that is;This round of green, this orb of flame,Fantastic beauty such as lurksIn some wild Poet, when he worksWithout a conscience or an aim.What then were God to such as I?'Twere hardly worth my while to chooseOf things all mortal, or to useA tattle patience ere I die;'Twere best at once to sink to peace,Like birds the charming serpent draws,To drop head-foremost in the jawsOf vacant darkness and to cease.”

“My business is, with all my might to serve my own generation; in doing so I shall best serve the next generation, should the Lord Jesus tarry... The longer I live, the more I am enabled to realize that I have but one life to live on earth, and that this one life is but a brief life, for sowing, in comparison with eternity, for reaping. ”

“I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air — I have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath — It may be I shall pass him still.I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear... But I've a rendezvous with DeathAt midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.”

“The poets and philosophers I once loved had it wrong. Death does not come to us all, nor does the passage of time dim our memories and reduce our bodies to dust. Because while I was considered dead, and a headstone had been engraved with my name, in truth my life was just beginning.”

“Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy... Understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.”

“I don't know how it is with others, and my feeling is that I cannot be like any other. Any other thinks, and then at once thinks something else. I cannot think something else, I think one thing all my life. God has tormented me all my life.”