Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.
Nothing that is can pause or stay; / The moon will wax, the moon will wane, / The mist and cloud will turn to rain, / The rain to mist and cloud again, / Tomorrow be today.
Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed To have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads.
As Unto the bow the the cord is , So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him , yet she follows: Useless each without the other.
Weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle; but the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and struggles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds.
The warriors that fought for their country, and bled, Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed; No stone tells the place where their ashes repose, Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes. They died in their glory, surrounded by fame, And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim; They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast, And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.
For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.
How can I tell the signals and the signs
By which one heart another heart divines?
How can I tell the many thousand ways
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?