"Through me you pass into the city
of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain...
...Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here."
- Dante's Inferno
"Because I could not stop for
Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality."
- Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not
Stop For Death
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
- T. S. Eliot, Hollow Men, The
"By the rude bridge that arched
the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
- Robert Frost, Road Not Taken, The
"The woods are lovely, dark and
deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep."
- Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening
"At last is Hector stretch'd upon
the plain,
Who fear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain:
Then, Prince! You should have fear'd, what now you feel;
Achilles absent was Achilles still:
Yet a short space the great avenger stayed,
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid."
- Homer, Iliad, The
"And He shall judge among the
nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat theur
swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither sall they learn war
any more."
- Isaiah, Isaiah 2:4
"The shades of night were falling
fast,
As though an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!"
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Excelsior
"Here at last
We shall be free;
the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It
"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him
Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy..."
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
"Angels and ministers of grace
defend us.
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee."
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
"To die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause; there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life."
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet
"He was my friend, faithful, and
just to me;
But Brutus says, he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should me made of sterner stuff,
Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man."
- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
"Do not trust the horse, Trojans!
Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even though they bring gifts."
- Virgil, Aeneid, The
"Yet each man kills the thing he
loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"
- Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading
Gaol
