“Do not fear the thorns in your path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”

“Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”

“March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.”

“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”

“But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”

“When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart:~By the same power that slays you, I too am slain, and I too shall be consumed.~For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.~Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”

“But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you? You who travel with the wind, what weathervane shall direct your course? What man's law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door? What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man's iron chains? And who is he that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your garment yet leave it in no man's path? People of Orphalese, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?”