“And swans seem whiter if swart crowes be by.”
Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer
First Week, First Day.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“And swans seem whiter if swart crowes be by.”
Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) French writer
First Week, First Day.
La Semaine; ou, Création du monde (1578)
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
The Fourteenth Revelation, Chapter 41
Context: Our Lord shewed concerning Prayer. In which Shewing I see two conditions in our Lord’s signifying: one is rightfulness, another is sure trust.
But yet oftentimes our trust is not full: for we are not sure that God heareth us, as we think because of our unworthiness, and because we feel right nought, (for we are as barren and dry oftentimes after our prayers as we were afore); and this, in our feeling our folly, is cause of our weakness. For thus have I felt in myself.
And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind, and shewed these words, and said: I am Ground of thy beseeching: first it is my will that thou have it; and after, I make thee to will it; and after, I make thee to beseech it and thou beseechest it. How should it then be that thou shouldst not have thy beseeching?
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)
Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron
Leggiadre donne, infra molte bianche colombe aggiugne più di bellezza uno nero corvo, che non farebbe un candido cigno.
Ninth Day, Tenth Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century
Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 97–106. <br class="br">Context: Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,<br>Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.<br>War, he sung, is toil and trouble;<br>Honor but an empty bubble;<br>Never ending, still beginning,<br>Fighting still, and still destroying.<br>If all the world be worth thy winning.<br>Think, oh think it worth enjoying:<br>Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,<br>Take the good the gods provide thee.
Gemma Galgani (1878–1903) ITALIANA
Quoted in The Life of St. Gemma Galgani by her spiritual director Ven. Germanus, trans. A. M. O'Sullivan, 1999, p. 258.