Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honor with hers?

But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.

I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world.

But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose.

A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine.

I love the silent hour of night, for blissful dreams may then arise, revealing to my charmed sight what may not bless my waking eyes.

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring and carried aloft on the wings of the breeze.

Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them.

Because the road is rough and long, Should we despise the skylark's song?

There are great books in this world and great worlds in books.

All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise.

Love is a combination of friendship, passion, and respect.

Evil is a disease able to spread from one person to another, as each convinces the other that might makes right, moral short-cuts are good things, and your enemies are not human but other

I switch between fixed forms and free verse often, and enjoy being a poet who can "swing both ways," so to speak.

When I first met him, he did not care if a friend did not fit into his world, because at that time his world had not been born yet.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

Vulnerability is not a weakness but a faculty for understanding.

It is blasphemy if you pray before God while you are full of anger.

Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful.

Twelve million students take the PARCC or Smarter Balanced. Now, if 5 percent opt out, that creates - that triggers some restrictions, and 5 percent of 12 million is only 600,000.

When I listen to old music, that's one of the few times that I actually have a kind of love for humanity.