Thrice Quotes

And thrice do I say to thee...bite me.

Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel.

Once lucky, twice confident, and thrice dead.

Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to acertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done.

A Tinker's Debt is Always Paid: Once for a simple trade. Twice for freely given aid. Thrice for any insult made.

Oogway: There are no accidents. Shifu: [sighs] Yes, I know. You've already said that twice. Oogway: That was no accident either. Shifu: Thrice.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him; The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones, So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answered it ... Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, (For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all; all honourable men) Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral ... He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man…. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then--how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas. The adult mind can lie with untroubled conscience and a gay composure, but in those days even a small deception scoured the tongue, lashing one against the stake itself.

A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true

Love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in its wake.

There were people thrice her size on the Trenton platform and she looked admiringly at one of them, a woman in a very short skirt. She thought nothing of slender legs shown off in miniskirts--it was safe and easy, after all, to display legs of which the world approved--but the fat woman's act was about the quiet conviction that one shared only with oneself, a sense of rightness that others failed to see.

You can learn from a glance at anyone's library, not what they are, but what they wish to be.

I have been around long enough to discount most superstitions for what they are: I was around when many of them began to take root, after all. But one superstition to which I happen to subscribe is that bad juju comes in threes. The saying in my time was, "Storm clouds are thrice cursed," but I can't talk like that and expect people to believe I'm a twenty-one year-old American. I have to say things like, "Shit happens, man.

Have this faith that someone is there to take away your weaknesses. Ok, you slipped once, twice, thrice. It does not matter. Keep moving ahead. People take vows never to commit mistakes again. Breaking the vows makes it worse. Surrendering is better

You and I, being grown-up and having lost our hearts at least twice or thrice along the way, might shut our eyes and cry out: Not that way, child! But as we have said, September was Somewhat Heartless, and felt herself reasonably safe on that road. Children always do.

Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Thrice is a pattern.

And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Cheating in relationship is a sign of self-regulation failure. When it happens ones, it is a mistake. When it happens twice, it is unfortunate. But when it happens thrice or more, it is a pattern indicating primitive, uncivilized inhuman behavior.

By nature, a storyteller is a plagiarist. Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.

Shadow and dust shall be reclaimed, earth sealing the tomb from which you came. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, warrior return, breathe your last. Air, earth, fire, water, hear my voice, obey my order, thrice around your grave do bound, evil sink into the ground. I now invoke the law of three, this is my will, so mote it be.

A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so.

Oh, by the thrice-beshitten shroud of Lazarus!

Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. Lady Cavendish, weren’t you working on this?’ Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts. ‘Indeed. The uses of had had and that that have to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the imaginotransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.’ ‘Go on.’ ‘It’s mostly an unlicensed-usage problem. At the last count David Copperfield alone had had had had sixty three times, all but ten unapproved. Pilgrim’s Progress may also be a problem due to its had had/that that ratio.’ ‘So what’s the problem in Progress?’ ‘That that had that that ten times but had had had had only thrice. Increased had had usage had had to be overlooked, but not if the number exceeds that that that usage.’ ‘Hmm,’ said the Bellman, ‘I thought had had had had TGC’s approval for use in Dickens? What’s the problem?’ ‘Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example,’ said Lady Cavendish. ‘You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had, had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.’ ‘So the problem with that other that that was that…?’ ‘That that other-other that that had had approval.’ ‘Okay’ said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, ‘let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim’s Progress, had had had, had had had had. Had had had had TGC’s approval?’ There was a very long pause. ‘Right,’ said the Bellman with a sigh, ‘that’s it for the moment. I’ll be giving out assignments in ten minutes. Session’s over – and let’s be careful out there.

Let me guess - you're Grumpy?' He let out a humpf. ' And you would be too, if you'd just spent the last hour searching the forest for your wayward charge.' He walked even faster. 'We tell you to stay inside, we tell you not to talk to strangers. But oh no, you must be out singing to the animals as if the birds didn't do a fine enough job of it. And this after Queen Neferia has already tried to kill you thrice. [...] Which is why you are not to go shopping anymore, no matter how pretty the wares, remember?' Oh, right.' [...] when you looked at it that way, Snow White had to be pretty idiotic to keep falling for the same trick.

...and then the threw the sword as far into the water as he might; and there came an arm and a hand above the water and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.

That bloody bastard! That thrice accursed son of a bitch!

Happy is the people that is without history. And thrice is the people without sociology.

The Queen Who Never Was; what did Viserys ever have that she did not? A little sausage? Is that all it takes to be a king? Let Mushroom rule, then. My sausage is thrice the size of his.

The other side of midnight’s hour strikes a herald thrice rung Seer, Shadow, Sun—together they come Sixteen winters hence—the light shall be eclipsed Leaving darkness to ascend beneath a sky bleeding fire

It probably wouldn't last. It never does. But it would come back around again. That's how life works. And that's why it's important to treasure the peaceful times-so you can persevere through the other kind.

Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drank the milk of Paradise.

I thrice presented him a kingly crown. Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

On evil's cushion poised, His Majesty, Satan Thrice-Great, lulls our charmed soul, until He turns to vapor what was once our will: Rich ore, transmuted by his alchemy.

The Weird Sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go, about, about, Thrice to thine, thrice to mine, And thrice again to make up nine. Peace, the charm's wound up.

Three failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice.

I do not encourage early morning chirpiness, even in those whom I know and love. It is generally a sign of a sloppy mind, and is not to be encouraged.

Despair always begins as a snack that you nibble on when bored and then becomes a meal that you have thrice a day.

A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas.

I started m-p-h-ing it homewards in a thrice

Thrice cursed are the weak whose insecurity makes them vile, for they shall serve and suffer.

If I don't save her from the hands of that humbug," he said, aloud, as he went to bed, "she is lost. But I shall save her." He put out his lamp and felt a need to insult Erik in the dark. Thrice over, he shouted: "Humbug!...Humbug!...Humbug!

God, no. I don’t want to tame her, I want to watch her. I just want to watch her be herself – it turns me on like nothing else.

Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity that He may make us stones and pillars in His Father's house.

We must be careful with our words – we’re like superheroes and words are like our super powers. Super powers should always be used to help others…

Return of love, more blest may be the view; As call it winter, which being full of care, Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare. Sonet56

Know the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.

I read Hesse's Steppenwolf thrice. The first time I was enchanted, the second time disappointed, the third time appalled.

I’ve never understood that. Once, twice, thrice removed. Who keeps track of such a thing? I always figure if they come to my birthday party we are related and that’s it, no need to pull out the genealogy chart.

Don’t be sorry for the truth. A harsh truth is less damaging than a tender lie, and the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

...we're not eighteen anymore. We've lived. We've created things that last – things of joy, and things of burden.

Thrice to thine and thrice to mine and thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! The charm’s wound up.

Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee, Before I knew thy face or name

Once bitten, twice shy, thrice shame on me!

So in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone, saying: “I knok this rag upone this stane To raise the wind in the divellis name, It sall not lye till I please againe.

I have always found there to be a certain sadness about mirrors, since they double the space in a house which needs to be filled with love.

True charity, I had discovered, consists in swallowing an invisible flaming sword.

Dreamless nights, I knew, can be the most troubling, since you come back not knowing where you've been or what you've done.

It certainly is a puzzle.” He turned back to the broken road. “But sometimes to find the answer, you have to take a leap of faith.

Men in great place are thrice servants, servants to the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business, so as they have freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times.

O thrice-romantic Master, would you not rather take long walks in a blooming cherry tree alley with your friend and listen to Schubert in the evenings? Would you not rather write by candlelight with a quill pen? Like Faust, would you not rather sit over a retort in the hopes of crafting a new homunculus? That is your desination, there. A house awaits you, with an aging servant; the candles are already lit and will soon extinguish as dawn inevitably arrives. Take this path, Master, and farewell! I must go.

THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES. . . . BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES . . . AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT . . . AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEITHER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES. . . . THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES . . .

Just bring your wits. Sometimes that's the most effective weapon any of us has.

Then, things get hard, because once you know magic exists, you have to decide whether to be the bystander, or the magician … and we were all born to be magicians.

Some wounds were worth bearing for the healing they brought.

They are fools, who reckon Elua a soft god, fit only for the worship of starry-eyed lovers. Let the warriors clamor after gods of blood and thunder; love is hard, harder than steel and thrice as cruel. It is as inexorable as the tides, and life and death alike follow in it's wake.

My lady, I did not think you could answer it, when I took you from your home without your leave, and set value only on your gift. But I am answered truly. You have given fair return for insult thrice over and set your worth: higher than my life and all my kingdom and all who live therein, and though you send my people to the fire, I can claim no debt to repay. It is justly done.

A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice. The stunned champ cried while inspecting the machine, "There's a man in there!"Lincoln's good news, he confided from the heights of leadership, was that there was in fact a man in there.

It's amazing what the discovery of a corpse can do for one's spirits.

Endings bring new beginnings. Love has many truths. And knights come in all colours.

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined. Harpier cries ’Tis time, ’tis time. Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.

None of us are ordinary – we just settle into ordinary lives.

Pieces of your heart broke every day when you were a mother.

Keep creating new chapters in your personal book and never stop re-inventing and perfecting yourself. Try new things. Pick up new hobbies and books. Travel and explore other cultures. Never stay in the same city or state for more than five years of your life. There are many heavens on earth waiting for you to discover. Seek out people with beautiful hearts and minds, not those with just beautiful style and bodies. The first kind will forever remain beautiful to you, while the other will grow stale and ugly. Learn a new language at least twice. Change your career at least thrice, and change your location often. Like all creatures in the wild, we were designed to keep moving. When a snake sheds its old skin, it becomes a more refined creature. Never stop refining and re-defining yourself. We are all beautiful instruments of God. He created many notes in music so we would not be stuck playing the same song. Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your journey and play on. Nobody will ever reach ultimate perfection in this lifetime, but trying to achieve it is a full-time job. Start now and don't stop. Make your book of life a musical. Never abandon obligations, but have fun leaving behind a colorful legacy. Never allow anybody to be the composer of your own destiny. Take control of your life, and never allow limitations implanted by society, tell you how your music is supposed to sound — or how your book is supposed to be written.

(We loved Mother too, completely, but we were finding out, as Father was too, that it is good for parents and for children to be alone now and then with one another...the man alone or the woman, to sound new notes in the mysterious music of parenthood and childhood.) That night I not only saw my Father for the first time as a person. I saw the golden hills and the live oaks as clearly as I have ever seen them since; and I saw the dimples in my little sister's fat hands in a way that still moves me because of that first time; and I saw food as something beautiful to be shared with people instead of as a thrice-daily necessity.

A minute afterwards he appeared upon the upper platform, still bearing the gipsy [sic] in his arms, still running wildly along, still shouting 'Sanctuary!' and the crowd still applauding. At last he made a third appearance on the summit of the tower of the great bell. From thence he seemed to show exultingly to the whole city the fair creature he had saved; and his thundering voice, that voice which was heard so seldom, and which he never heard at all, thrice repeated with frantic vehemence, even in the very clouds, 'Sactuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary! The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Came the visions of icy beauty, from the land of death where they dwell. Pursuing their prize and grisly duty, came the thieves of the charm and spell. The bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. Alluring of shape though seldom seen, they traveled the breeze on a spark. some fed twigs to their newborn queen, while others invaded the dark. the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. some they called and others they kissed as they traveled on river and wave. with resolve they came and did insist: every one touched to a grave. the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. roving to hunt and gathering to dance, they practiced their dark desires by casting a hex and a beautiful trance, before feeding the queen's new fires. the bells chimed thrice, and death came a-calling. till he parted the falls and the bells chimed thrice, till he issued the calls and demanded the price. the bells chimed thrice and death met the mountain. they charmed and embraced and they tried to extoll but he bade them in grace and demanded a soul. the bells fell silent and the mountain slew them all. and the mountain entombed them all.

It is time,' he said, 'to collect on my wager.' He moved slowly. First, his hands sliding round me and cool light-colored hair drifting against my cheek, and then softly, so softly, the brush of lips against my brow, my eyes, and then my lips. Once, twice, thrice, but not closer. The sensations - like starfire - that glowed through me chased away from my head all thoughts save one, to close that last distance between us. I locked my fingers round his neck and pulled his face again down to mine.

Growing up is like that, I suppose. The strings fall away and you're left standing on your own.

Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is not so simple as it sounds. What it means, in fact, is being charitable--which, as the vicar is fond of pointing out, is the most difficult of the graces to master. Faith and hope are a piece of cake but charity is a Pandora's box: the monster in the cistern which, when the lid is opened, comes swarming out to seize you by the throat.

Happy is the man who knows how to distinguish the real from the unreal, the eternal from the transient and the good from the pleasant by his discrimination and wisdom. Twice blessed is he who knows true love and can love all God's creatures. He who works selflessly for the welfare of others with love in his heart is thrice blessed. But the man who combines within his mortal frame knowledge, love and selfless service is holy and becomes a place of pilgrimage.

I think dismissing female pain as overly familiar or somehow out-of-date--twice-told, thrice-told, 1,001-nights-told--masks deeper accusations: that suffering women are playing victim, going weak, or choosing self-indulgence over bravery. I think dismissing wounds offers a convenient excuse: no need to struggle with the listening or telling anymore. Plug it up. Like somehow our task is to inhabit the jaded aftermath of terminal self-awareness once the story of all pain has already been told.

Blow on, ye death fraught whirlwinds! blow, Around the rocks, and rifted caves; Ye demons of the gulf below! I hear you, in the troubled waves. High on this cliff, which darkness shrouds In night's impenetrable clouds, My solitary watch I keep, And listen, while the turbid deep Groans to the raging tempests, as they roll Their desolating force, to thunder at the pole. Eternal world of waters, hail! Within thy caves my Lover lies; And day and night alike shall fail Ere slumber lock my streaming eyes. Along this wild untrodden coast, Heap'd by the gelid' hand of frost; Thro' this unbounded waste of seas, Where never sigh'd the vernal breeze; Mine was the choice, in this terrific form, To brave the icy surge, to shiver in the storm. Yes! I am chang'd - My heart, my soul, Retain no more their former glow. Hence, ere the black'ning tempests roll, I watch the bark, in murmurs low, (While darker low'rs the thick'ning' gloom) To lure the sailor to his doom; Soft from some pile of frozen snow I pour the syren-song of woe; Like the sad mariner's expiring cry, As, faint and worn with toil, he lays him down to die. Then, while the dark and angry deep Hangs his huge billows high in air ; And the wild wind with awful sweep, Howls in each fitful swell - beware! Firm on the rent and crashing mast, I lend new fury to the blast; I mark each hardy cheek grow pale, And the proud sons of courage fail; Till the torn vessel drinks the surging waves, Yawns the disparted main, and opes its shelving graves. When Vengeance bears along the wave The spell, which heav'n and earth appals; Alone, by night, in darksome cave, On me the gifted wizard calls. Above the ocean's boiling flood Thro' vapour glares the moon in blood: Low sounds along the waters die, And shrieks of anguish fill the' sky; Convulsive powers the solid rocks divide, While, o'er the heaving surge, the embodied spirits glide. Thrice welcome to my weary sight, Avenging ministers of Wrath! Ye heard, amid the realms of night, The spell that wakes the sleep of death. Where Hecla's flames the snows dissolve, Or storms, the polar skies involve; Where, o'er the tempest-beaten wreck, The raging winds and billows break; On the sad earth, and in the stormy sea, All, all shall shudd'ring own your potent agency. To aid your toils, to scatter death, Swift, as the sheeted lightning's force, When the keen north-wind's freezing breath Spreads desolation in its course, My soul within this icy sea, Fulfils her fearful destiny. Thro' Time's long ages I shall wait To lead the victims to their fate; With callous heart, to hidden rocks decoy, And lure, in seraph-strains, unpitying, to destroy.

[339] Vita femina. To see the ultimate beauties in a work-all knowledge and good-will is not enough; it requires the rarest, good chance for the veil of clouds to move for once from the summits, and for the sun to shine on them. We must not only stand at precisely the right place to see this, our very soul itself must have pulled away the veil from its heights, and must be in need of an external expression and simile, so as to have a hold and remain master of itself. All these, however, are so rarely united at the same time that I am inclined to believe that the highest summit of all that is good, be it work, deed, man, or nature, has hitherto remained for most people, and even for the best, as something concealed and shrouded-that, however, which unveils itself to us, unveils itself to us but once. The Greeks indeed prayed: "Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!" Ah, they had their good reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish us with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those beautiful things. But perhaps this is the greatest charm of life: it puts a gold- embroidered veil of lovely potentialities over itself, promising, resisting, modest, mocking, sympathetic, seductive. Yes, life is a woman!

The use of reading, Gibbon says somewhere, is to aid us in thinking. I have always disagreed with Gibbon over that; he may have used literature to help him think, but for me, often, and for most of the human race I reckon (since I have no reason to think myself unique) books can be a mind-stupefying drug, employed to banish thought, not to invoke it. When I am unhappy I can sink into a novel as into unconsciousness. Blessed War and Peace, thrice blessed Mansfield Park; how many potential suicides have their pages distracted and soothed and entertained past the danger point?

... How would you open my chest if you had a mind to?" Bast's expression grew slightly apprehensive. "Your thrice-locked chest, Reshi?" Kvothe looked at his student, the laughter bubbled up out of him. "My what?" he asked incredulously. Bast blushed and looked down. "That's just how I think of it," he mumbled. "As names go..." Kvothe hesitated, a smile playing around his mouth. "Well it's a little storybook, don't you think?" "You're the one who made the thing, Reshi," Bast said sullenly. "Three locks and fancy wood and all that. It's not my fault if it sounds storybook." Kvothe leaned forward and rested an apologetic hand on Bast's knee. "It's a fine name, Bast. Just caught me off my guard is all." He leaned back again. "So. How would you attempt to plunder the thrice-locked chest of Kvothe the Bloodless?

olemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

...today, I’m writing about the extraordinary; those ‘moments’ in life that reach us, and change us. Those moments take place all the time, really – it’s just that we’re taught not to notice. We’re taught that whims are for the foolish; that instinct and passion are more akin to fairy tales than reality; that they won’t get us very far, and everyone would laugh at us if they knew what we really held close to our hearts. It’s a lie we allow ourselves, and it’s understandable. But it’s simply not true.

Let us watch these mighty ones as they pass silently by. First, Orpheus, playing upon the seven stringed lyre of his own being, the music of the spheres. Then Hermes, the thrice greatest, with his emerald tablet of divine revelation. Through the shades of the past we dimly see Krishna, the illuminated, who on the battlefield of life taught man the mysteries of his own soul. Then we see the sublime Buddha, his yellow robe not half so glorious as the heart it covered, and our own dear Master, the man Jesus, his head surrounded with a halo of Golden Flame, and his brow serene with the calm of mastery. Then Mohammed, Zoroaster, Confucius, Odin, and Moses, and others no less worthy pass by before the eyes of the student They were the Sons of Flame. From the Flame they came, and to the Flame they have returned. To us they beckon, and bid us join them, and in our robes of self-earned glory to serve the Flame they love. They were without creed or clan; they served but the one great ideal. From the same place they all came, and to the same place they have returned. There was no superiority there. Hand in hand they labor for humanity. Each loves the other, for the power that has made them masters has shown them the Brotherhood of all life.

What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

I don’t think of faith as something you need to have in the world, or in some deity or religion or whatever; I think having faith is about trusting in yourself, and trusting that you’ll know what to do when life gets complicated. I’m not scared of complications. But I am scared of walking away from something I want with every fibre of my being, without even trying to have it.

She was like a queen who beholds the virgin soil of her kingdom invaded and wasted by a traitor. Any other thing she would have pardoned: infidelity, indifference, cruelty, any sins of manhood's caprice or passion, but who should pardon this? The sin was not alone against herself; it was against every law of decency and truth that ever she had been taught to hold sacred; it was against all those great dead, who lay with the cross on their breasts and their swords by their side, from whom she had received and treasured the traditions of honor and purity of race. It was those dead knights whom he had smote upon the mouth and mocked, crying to them: 'Lo! your place is mine; my sons will reign in your stead. I have tainted your race forever; for every my blood flows with yours!' The greatness of a race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its instincts are noble and supreme. Its obligations are no less than its privileges; it is a great light which streams backward through the darkness of the ages, and if by that light you guide not your footsteps, then are you thrice accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honor in your hands. So she had always thought, and now he had dashed the lamp in the dust. --"Wanda

I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in ME--not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression--a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands--it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body.

Your country? How came it yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit. Around us the history of the land has centred for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation's heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right. Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?

...Hell is the home of the unreal and of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven, which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and from earth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is a nursery in which men and women play at being heroes and heroines, saints and sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool’s paradise by their bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease, death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals must be eaten and digested: thrice a century a new generation must be engendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven at last to have but one prayer, “Make me a healthy animal.” But here you escape this tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all: you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless, ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, no political questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, no sanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotions love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put it in his poem, “the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on...

He took the sacramental chalice, and stretching forth his bare arm, cried in a loud voice, 'Come ye viewless ministers of this dread hour! come from the fenny lake, the hanging rock, and the midnight cave! The moon is red - the stars are out - the sky is burning - and all nature stands aghast at what we do!' Then replacing the sacred vessel on the altar, he drew, one by one, from different parts of his body, from his knotted hair, from his bosom, from beneath his nails, the unholy things which he cast into it. 'This,' said he, 'I plucked from the beak of a raven feeding on a murderer's brains! This is the mad dog's foam! These the spurgings of a dead man's eyes, gathered since the rising of the evening star! This is a screech-owl's egg! This a single drop of black blood, squeezed from the heart of a sweltered toad! This, an adder's tongue! And here, ten grains of the gray moss that grew upon a skull which had lain in the charnel-house three hundred years! What! Not yet?' And his eyes seemed like balls of fire as he cast them upwards. 'Not yet? I call ye once! I call ye twice! Dare ye deny me! Nay, then, as I call ye thrice, I'll wound mine arm, and as it drops, I'll breathe a spell shall cleave the ground and drag you here!' ("The Forsaken Of God")

Then I saw the keyboard of an organ which filled one whole side of the walls. On the desk was a music-book covered with red notes. I asked leave to look at it and read, ‘Don Juan Triumphant.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, 'I compose sometimes.’ I began that work twenty years ago. When I have finished, I shall take it away with me in that coffin and never wake up again.’ 'You must work at it as seldom as you can,’ I said. He replied, 'I sometimes work at it for fourteen days and nights together, during which I live on music only, and then I rest for years at a time.’ 'Will you play me something out of your Don Juan Triumphant?’ I asked, thinking to please him. 'You must never ask me that,’ he said, in a gloomy voice. 'I will play you Mozart, if you like, which will only make you weep; but my Don Juan, Christine, burns; and yet he is not struck by fire from Heaven.’ Thereupon we returned to the drawing-room. I noticed that there was no mirror in the whole apartment. I was going to remark upon this, but Erik had already sat down to the piano. He said, 'You see, Christine, there is some music that is so terrible that it consumes all those who approach it. Fortunately, you have not come to that music yet, for you would lose all your pretty coloring and nobody would know you when you returned to Paris. Let us sing something from the Opera, Christine Daae.’ He spoke these last words as though he were flinging an insult at me.” “What did you do?” “I had no time to think about the meaning he put into his words. We at once began the duet in Othello and already the catastrophe was upon us. I sang Desdemona with a despair, a terror which I had never displayed before. As for him, his voice thundered forth his revengeful soul at every note. Love, jealousy, hatred, burst out around us in harrowing cries. Erik’s black mask made me think of the natural mask of the Moor of Venice. He was Othello himself. Suddenly, I felt a need to see beneath the mask. I wanted to know the FACE of the voice, and, with a movement which I was utterly unable to control, swiftly my fingers tore away the mask. Oh, horror, horror, horror!” Christine stopped, at the thought of the vision that had scared her, while the echoes of the night, which had repeated the name of Erik, now thrice moaned the cry: “Horror! … Horror! … Horror!

In the stillest hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whispers: First Self: Here, in this madman, I have dwelt all these years, with naught to do but renew his pain by day and recreate his sorrow by night. I can bear my fate no longer, and now I rebel. Second Self: Yours is a better lot than mine, brother, for it is given to me to be this madman's joyous self. I laugh his laughter and sing his happy hours, and with thrice winged feet I dance his brighter thoughts. It is I that would rebel against my weary existence. Third Self: And what of me, the love-ridden self, the flaming brand of wild passion and fantastic desires? It is I the love-sick self who would rebel against this madman. Fourth Self: I, amongst you all, am the most miserable, for naught was given me but odious hatred and destructive loathing. It is I, the tempest-like self, the one born in the black caves of Hell, who would protest against serving this madman. Fifth Self: Nay, it is I, the thinking self, the fanciful self, the self of hunger and thirst, the one doomed to wander without rest in search of unknown things and things not yet created; it is I, not you, who would rebel. Sixth Self: And I, the working self, the pitiful labourer, who, with patient hands, and longing eyes, fashion the days into images and give the formless elements new and eternal forms- it is I, the solitary one, who would rebel against this restless madman. Seventh Self: How strange that you all would rebel against this man, because each and every one of you has a preordained fate to fulfil. Ah! could I but be like one of you, a self with a determined lot! But I have none, I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and nowhen, while you are busy re-creating life. Is it you or I, neighbours, who should rebel? When the seventh self thus spake the other six selves looked with pity upon him but said nothing more; and as the night grew deeper one after the other went to sleep enfolded with a new and happy submission. But the seventh self remained watching and gazing at nothingness, which is behind all things.

I think we must only a few of us go," Laurence said, low. "I will take a few volunteers - " "Oh, the devil you will!" Granby exclaimed furiously. "No, this time I damned well put my foot down, Laurence. Send you off to go scrambling about in that warren with no notion where you are going, and nothing more likely than running into a dozen guards round every corner; I should like to see myself do it. I am not going back to England to tell them I sat about twiddling my thumbs whilst you got yourself cut to pieces. Temeraire, you are not to let him go, do you hear me? He is sure to be killed; I give you my word." "If the party are sure to be killed, I am not going to let anyone go!" Temeraire said, in high alarm, and sat up sharp, quite prepared to physically hold anyone back who made an attempt to leave. "Temeraire, this is plain exaggeration," Laurence said. "Mr. Granby, you overstate the case, and you overstep your bounds." "Well, I don't," Granby said defiantly. "I have bit my tongue a dozen times over, because I know it is wretched hard to sit about watching and you haven't been trained up to it, but you are a captain, and you must be more careful of your neck. It isn't only your own but the Corps' affair if you snuff it, and mine too." "If I may," Tharkay said quietly, interrupting when Laurence would have remonstrated further with Granby, "I will go; alone I am reasonably sure I can find a way to the eggs, without rousing any alarm, and then I can return and guide the rest of the party there." "Tharkay," Laurence said, "this is no service you owe us; I would not order even a man under oath of arms to undertake it, without he were willing." "But I am willing," Tharkay gave his faint half-smile, "and more likely to come back whole from it than anyone else here." "At the cost of running thrice the risk, going and coming back and going again," Laurence said, "with a fresh chance of running into the guards every time through." "So it is very dangerous, then," Temeraire said, overhearing to too much purpose, and pricking up his ruff further. "You are not to go, at all, Granby is quite right; and neither is anyone else." "Oh, Hell," Laurence said, under his breath. "It seems there is very little alternative to my going," Tharkay said. "Not you either!" Temeraire contradicted, to Tharkay's startlement, and settled down as mulish as a dragon could look; and Granby had folded his arms and wore an expression very similar. Laurence had ordinarily very little inclination to profanity, but he was sorely tempted on this occasion. An appeal to Temeraire's reason might sway him to allow a party to make the attempt, if he could be persuaded to accept the risk as necessary for the gain, like a battle; but he would surely balk at seeing Laurence go, and Laurence had not the least intention of sending men on so deadly an enterprise if he were not going himself, Corps rules be damned.

To the enormous majority of persons who risk themselves in literature, not even the smallest measure of success can fall. They had better take to some other profession as quickly as may be, they are only making a sure thing of disappointment, only crowding the narrow gates of fortune and fame. Yet there are others to whom success, though easily within their reach, does not seem a thing to be grasped at. Of two such, the pathetic story may be read, in the Memoir of A Scotch Probationer, Mr. Thomas Davidson, who died young, an unplaced Minister of the United Presbyterian Church, in 1869. He died young, unaccepted by the world, unheard of, uncomplaining, soon after writing his latest song on the first grey hairs of the lady whom he loved. And she, Miss Alison Dunlop, died also, a year ago, leaving a little work newly published, Anent Old Edinburgh, in which is briefly told the story of her life. There can hardly be a true tale more brave and honourable, for those two were eminently qualified to shine, with a clear and modest radiance, in letters. Both had a touch of poetry, Mr. Davidson left a few genuine poems, both had humour, knowledge, patience, industry, and literary conscientiousness. No success came to them, they did not even seek it, though it was easily within the reach of their powers. Yet none can call them failures, leaving, as they did, the fragrance of honourable and uncomplaining lives, and such brief records of these as to delight, and console and encourage us all. They bequeath to us the spectacle of a real triumph far beyond the petty gains of money or of applause, the spectacle of lives made happy by literature, unvexed by notoriety, unfretted by envy. What we call success could never have yielded them so much, for the ways of authorship are dusty and stony, and the stones are only too handy for throwing at the few that, deservedly or undeservedly, make a name, and therewith about one-tenth of the wealth which is ungrudged to physicians, or barristers, or stock-brokers, or dentists, or electricians. If literature and occupation with letters were not its own reward, truly they who seem to succeed might envy those who fail. It is not wealth that they win, as fortunate men in other professions count wealth; it is not rank nor fashion that come to their call nor come to call on them. Their success is to be let dwell with their own fancies, or with the imaginations of others far greater than themselves; their success is this living in fantasy, a little remote from the hubbub and the contests of the world. At the best they will be vexed by curious eyes and idle tongues, at the best they will die not rich in this world’s goods, yet not unconsoled by the friendships which they win among men and women whose faces they will never see. They may well be content, and thrice content, with their lot, yet it is not a lot which should provoke envy, nor be coveted by ambition.