“Nature at times adds her own commentary to our actions with a kind of somber and considered eloquence, as though she were bidding us reflect.”

“Nature sometimes joins her effects and her appearances to our acts with a sort of serious and intelligent appropriateness; as if she would compel us to reflect.”

“For all of us, love can be the natural state of our own being; naturally at peace, naturally connected, because this becomes the reflection of who we simply are.”

“Nor could she help feeling, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.”

“And woo her with some spirit when she comes. Say that she rail; why, then, I'll tell her plain, she sings as sweetly as a nightingail: Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly washt with dew: Say she be mute and will not speak a word; Then I'll commend her volubility, And say she uttereth piercing eloquence: If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, As though she bid me stay by her a week: If she deny to be wed, I'll crave the day When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.”

“Don't we live instead as though God is created for us, to do our bidding, to bless us, and to take care of our loved ones?”