Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Through the dancing poppies stole A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.

Shed no tear - O, shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more - O, weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root's white core.

Open afresh your rounds of starry folds, Ye ardent Marigolds.

And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed, Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.

Neither poetry, nor ambition, nor love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me.

You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.

It's terribly important that we extend the promise of equality that the Supreme Court and that the district court articulated in the DOMA case and in the Perry case to all Americans in all 50 states.

I became a part of the Civil Rights movement early on and that has really shaped a great deal of my thinking.

Since the early '80s, I've found myself in war zones in various parts of the world.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old.

We have fought long and hard to escape from medieval superstition. I, for one, do not wish to go back.

I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.

Clouds suit my mood just fine.

The lesson is: Even if you know exactly what is going on in you system, measure performance, don't speculate. You'll learn something, and nine times out of ten, it won't be that you were right!!