“From such a gentle thing,from such a fountain of all delight,my every pain is born...”

“No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.”

“O night, O sweetest time, though black of hue,with peace you force all the restless work to end;those who exalt you see and understand,and he is sound of mind who honours you.You cut the thread of tired thoughts, for soyou offer calm in your moist shade; you sendto this low sphere the dreams where we ascendup to the highest, where I long to go.Shadow of death that brings to quiet closeall miseries that plague the heart and soul,for those in pain the last and best of cures;you heal the flesh of its infirmities,dry and our tears and shut away our toil,and free the good from wrath and fretting cares.”

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”

“Dear to me is sleep: still more, being made of stone,While pain and guilt still linger here below,Blindness and numbness--these please me alone;Then do not wake me, keep your voices low.”

“Precious is sleep, better to be of stone,while the oppression and the shame still last;not seeing and not hearing, I am blest;so do not wake me, hush! keep your voice down.”

“The greatest artist does not have any conceptWhich a single piece of marble does not itself containWithin its excess, though onlyA hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.”