Quotes about Reflection

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

Its avowed purpose is to excite sexual desire, which, I should have thought, is unnecessary in the case of the young, inconvenient in the case of the middle aged, and unseemly in the old.

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.

Heaven is for thee too high To know what passes there; be lowly wise. Think only what concerns thee and thy being; Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there Live, in what state, condition, or degree, Contented that thus far hath been revealed.

Firm they might have stood, yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress.

Thou therefore on these Herbs, and Fruits, and Flow'rs Feed first, on each Beast next, and Fish, and Fowl, No homely morsels, and whatever thing The Scyth of Time mows down, devour unspar'd, Till I in Man residing through the Race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions all infect, And season him thy last and sweetest prey.

The wary fiend stood on the brink of hell, pondering his voyage

Solitude sometimes is the best society.

This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty; which will change 540 To withered, weak, and gray; thy senses then, Obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forego, To what thou hast; and, for the air of youth, Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign A melancholy damp of cold and dry 545 To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume The balm of life.

For solitude sometimes is best society and short retirement urges sweet return.

Was I to have never parted from thy side? As good have grown there still a lifeless rib. Paradise Lost, Book IX, l. 1154

Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.