“To be able to say how much love, is love but little.”

“She closed her eyes; and in the sweet slumber lyingher spirit tiptoed from its lodging place.It's folly to shrink in fear, if this is dying;for death looked lovely in her face.”

“Neither exhortations to virtue nor the argument of approaching death should divert us from literature; for in a good mind it excites the love of virtue, and dissipates, or at least diminishes, the fear of death.”

“. . . The senses reign, and reason now is dead;from one pleasing desire comes another.Virtue, honor, beauty, gracious bearing,sweet words have caught me in her lovely branchesin which my heart is tenderly entangled.In thirteen twenty-seven, and preciselyat the first hour of the sixth of AprilI entered the labyrinth, and I see no way out.”

“Shame is the fruit of my vanities, and remorse, and the clearest knowledge of how the world's delight is a brief dream.”

“Yet have I oft been beaten in the field, And sometimes hurt," said I, "but scorn'd to yield." He smiled and said: "Alas! thou dost not see, My son, how great a flame's prepared for thee.”

“Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.”