The ancestral deed is thought and done, And in a million Edens fall A million Adams drowned in darkness, For small is great and great is small, And a blind seed all.

And without fear the lawless roads Ran wrong through all the land.

Kindness and courage can repair time's faults, And serving him breeds patience and courtesy In us, light sojourners and passing subjects.

The curse of Scottish literature is the lack of a whole language, which finally means the lack of a whole mind.

The life of every man is an endlessly repeated performance of the life of man.

There is a road that turning always Cuts off the country of Again. Archers stand there on every side And as it runstime's deer is slain, And lies where it has lain.

We meet ourselves at every turn In the long country of the past.

Packed in my skin from head to toe is one I know and do not know.

I have observed in foolish awe The dateless mid-days of the law And seen indifferent justice done By everyone on everyone.

Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep, Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow, And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.

See him, the gentle Bible beast, / With lacquered hoofs and curling mane, / His wondering journey from the East / Half done, between the rock and plain.

I am ashamed of my century, but I have to smile.

People don't realise that to be free means to be firmly attached to a system, that discipline is the road to a higher freedom.

If I only looked at what I've lost, I'd never be able to see what I have.

If we can somehow survive this world, we would've achieved something in this world.

Some men prefer the heady tang of revenge to the comfort of cash.

My wife's French. I mean I speak a bit of French but I've lived amongst French, you know, most of my adult life.

By giving away food we get more strength. By bestowing clothing on others we gain more beauty. By donating abodes of purity and truth we acquire great treasures.

My mother's the youngest of 10 children too, so we have sort of a special bond in that we know what that feels like. It's a strange spot to be in.

Did you hear that we're writing Iraq's new Constitution? Why not just give them ours? We're not using it anymore.

A community is easily divide when their perception of the same thing is different