Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame,-nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Aristotle ... imputed this symphony of the heavens ... this music of the spheres to Pythagorus. ... But Pythagoras alone of mortals is said to have heard this harmony ... If our hearts were as pure, as chaste, as snowy as Pythagoras' was, our ears would resound and be filled with that supremely lovely music of the wheeling stars.
I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble Education; laborious indeed at first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
wherein the Son of heaven's eternal King,
of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
our great redemption from above did bring.