“Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flow'rs do coverThe friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse and the mole,To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm,But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,For with his nails he'll dig them up again.Let holy Church receive him duly,Since he paid the church-tithes truly.”

“What's this flesh? A little cruded milkFantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than thosePaper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible,Since our is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever seen A lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this worldIs like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads Like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge Of the small compass of our prison.”

“God is calling us to live for the sake of Christ and to do that through suffering. Christ chose suffering; it didn’t just happen to Him. He chose it as the way to create and perfect the church. Now He calls us to choose suffering. That is, He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him on the Calvary road and deny ourselves and make sacrifices for the sake of ministering to the church and presenting His sufferings to the world.”

“The clangor of the body shop comes up softly. It's noise comforts him, tells him he is hidden and safe, that while he hides men are busy nailing the world down, and toward the disembodied sounds his heart makes in darkness a motion of love.”

“Aren't men funny? When they want to pay you the greatest compliment in their power, they naively tell you that you have a masculine mind. There is one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be paying him. I cannot honestly say that he has a quickness of perception almost feminine.”

“Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.”

“Are you out of your princely wits?"What's he? Let me have his beard sawed off and his eyebrows filed more civil!”