“… what is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends, there's nothing left.”

[Liberties Lost: The Endangered Legacy of the ACLU, Baldwin, Roger, 0275985067, 1971, 2006, Woody Klein, The Roger Baldwin Story: A Prejudiced Account By Himself, Praeger Publishers, Westport, CT, 11, http://books.google.com/books?id=EsJinpB3XYsC&pg=PA11]

Source: On Self-Respect

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: What Happens in London

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

Book X : The Pope.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Context: What wonder if the novel claim had clashed
With old requirement, seemed to supersede
Too much the customary law? But, brave,
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,
Accept the obligation laid on thee,
Mother elect, to save the unborn child,
As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,
Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant
And flower o' the field, all in a common pact
To worthily defend the trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living: — didst resist —
Anticipate the office that is mine —
And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,
The endeavour of the wicked, and defend
Him who, — again in my default, — was there
For visible providence: one less true than thou
To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right,
Approved less far in all docility
To all instruction, — how had such an one
Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?"

As quoted in [Philip K. Hitti, History of The Arabs, 130]

If You Don't Wanna Love Me
Song lyrics, Undiscovered (James Morrison album) (2006)