The return of Saint Cecilia’s Day finds me in better health than has been usual with me in these last six months. But I am not engaged in any work that makes a higher life for me – a life that is young and grows, though in my other life I am getting old and decaying.

George Eliot

Does one of us feel sad? Let the name of Jesus come into his heart, from there let it spring to his mouth, so that shining like the dawn it may dispel all darkness and make a cloudless sky. Does someone fall into sin? Does his despair even urge him to suicide? Let him invoke this Life-Giving Name and his will to live will be at once renewed.

St Bernard of Clairvaux

 You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this and you will find strength.

Marcus Aurelius

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't.

Mark Twain

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party didn't miss the boat.

Mark Twain

"When I recall the Voyage, gratitude puts no smear of Vaseline on the lens." 

Reason is God's gift; so are the passions: reason is as guilty as passion.

Cardinal Newman

The opposite of faith is not doubt: the opposite of faith is certainty. 

Wisdom gleaned from a clerical friend

The grace of the Spirit was given that our journey is directed towards that Heavenly Country that is our Eternal Rest, our place of deep and abiding satisfaction.

The Venerable Bede

The one who gives reluctant service brings a state of slavery upon himself.

The Angel that presided o'er my birth

Said, Little creature formed of joy and mirth,

Go, love, without the help of anything on earth.

William Blake

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires: but upon what foundation did we rest the the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men and women would die for him.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither.

C. S. Lewis

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.

 John Milton

THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE DEDICATED TO A RANDOM SELECTION OF MY POEMS