The god we now behold with opened eyes, A herd of spotted panthers round him lies In glaring forms; the grapy clusters spread On his fair brows, and dangle on his head.

My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.

A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace.

Quarrels are the dowry which married folk bring one another.

Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.

Make the workmanship surpass the materials.

Love is no assignment for cowards.

Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.

The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.

Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.

If you want to be loved, be lovable.

Engineering -nature is engineering, so is culture, science is right behind, only chaos is not an engineer- and, along with it, the furious need to reproduce.

The reality is that changes are coming. ... They must come. You must share in bringing them.

It is an awfully sad misconception that librarians simply check books in and out. The library is the heart of a school, and without a librarian, it is but an empty shell.

In two thousand years all our generals and politicians may be forgotten, but Einstein and Madame Curie and Bernard Shaw and Stravinsky will keep the memory of our age alive.

To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace.

I'm just the biggest klutz. That's the problem. I don't get hurt doing cool things.

I do think the author ought to be able to give a good reason for the way things are in his poem. Not a bad question to ask oneself.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.