“In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were,
In habite as an heremite vnholy of workes,
Went wyde in þis worlde wondres to here.”
― Piers Plowman: Selections from the B-text
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were,
In habite as an heremite vnholy of workes,
Went wyde in þis worlde wondres to here.”
― Piers Plowman: Selections from the B-text
“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do. Keimer”
― The Autobiography and Other Writings
― The Autobiography and Other Writings
“If I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I should have the sort of feeling which actually comes upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and see no reflexion of its Creator.”
― Apologia Pro Vita Sua
― Apologia Pro Vita Sua
“So as not to see anything any more, I turned towards the wall, but alas, what was now facing me was that partition which used to serve us as a morning messenger, that partition which, as responsive as a violin in rendering every nuance of a feeling, reported so exactly to my grandmother my fear at once of waking her and, if she were already awake, of not being heard by her and so of her not coming, then immediately, like a second instrument taking up the melody, informing me of her coming and bidding me be calm. I dared not put out my hand to that wall, any more than to a piano on which my grandmother had been playing and which still vibrated from her touch. I knew that I might knock now, even louder, that nothing would wake her any more, that I should hear no response, that my grandmother would never come again. And I asked nothing more of God, if a paradise exists, than to be able, there, to knock on that wall with the three little raps which my grandmother would recognize among a thousand, and to which she would give those answering knocks which meant: "Don't fuss, little mouse, I know you're impatient, but I'm coming," and that he would let me stay with her throughout eternity, which would not be too long for the two of us.”
― Sodom and Gomorrah
― Sodom and Gomorrah
“Moralists of the sternest persuasion would readily agree with Horace that neither high birth nor clever words can recommend the soul in the face of final judgement. But then the poet puts in his hammer blow: '... non te restituet pietas.' Not virtue itself is going to be any help. All, in fact, is vanity: not only gold and silver, not only worldly fame and accomplishment, but duty, faith, and purity too. The highest moral character can procure one no preference among the shades.”
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