“Who is that goddess to whom men should pray
But her from whom their hearts have turned away,
Out of whose virgin being they were born,
Whose mother nature they have named in scorn
Calling its holy substance common clay.
Yet from this so despised earth was made
The milky whiteness of those queens who swayed
Their generations with a light caress,
And from some image of whose loveliness
The heart built up high heaven when it prayed.”

— George William Russell

By Still Waters (1906)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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George William Russell 134

Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter 1867–1935

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“It may be from some moral obliquity in myself, or from some strange disease; but for me, and I should think too for every human being in whose breast a human heart is beating, to know that one single creature is in that dreadful place would make a hell of heaven itself. And they have hearts in heaven, for they love there.”

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“He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only.”

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“In all this world, I pray thee, who
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The triple world can guard from ill? Who is the best of princes, he
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“Let your Christianity be so unmistakeable, your eye so single, your heart so whole, your walk so straightforward, that all who see you may have no doubt whose you are and whom you serve.”

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George William Russell 134

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