“The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.”

“And following its path, we took no careTo rest, but climbed: he first, then I-- so far,Through a round aperture I saw appearSome of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”

“I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightfoward pathway had been lost. Ah me! How hard a thing is to say, what was this forest savage, rough, and stern, which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more...”

“To get back up to the shining world from thereMy guide and I went into that hidden tunnel,And Following its path, we took no careTo rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far,through a round aperture I saw appearSome of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”

“The mind which is created quick to love, is responsive to everything that is pleasing, soon as by pleasure it is awakened into activity. Your apprehensive faculty draws an impression from a real object, and unfolds it within you, so that it makes the mind turn thereto. And if, being turned, it inclines towards it, that inclination is love; that is nature, which through pleasure is bound anew within you.”

“Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me.”

“Lying in a featherbed will not bring you fame, nor staying beneath the quilt, and he who uses up his life without achieving fame leaves no more vestige of himself on earth than smoke in the air or foam upon the water.”