Charles Eliot Norton

Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark wood, for the right way had been missed.

the Lovee was turning which moves the Sun and the other stars.

Love, that on gentle heart quickly lays hold, seized him for the fair person that was taken from me, and the mode still hurts me. Love, which absolves no loved one from loving, seized me for the pleasing of him so strongly that, as thou seest, it does not even now abandon me. Love brought us to one death.

the more perfect a thing is the more it feels the good, and so the pain.

Consider ye your origin; ye were not made to live as brutes, but for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.

O human race, born to fly up‍­ward, why be‍­fore a little wind dost thou so fall?

Then was the fear a little quieted which in the lake of my heart had lasted through the night that I passed so piteously.