“It is better to have a sword in the hand and love in the heart and not the other way around”

“And yet there is an anger that purifies the heart:
The anger of the better against the baser part,
Against the false and wicked, against the tyrant's sword,
Against the enemies of love, and all that hate the Lord.”

“With a pen in my hand I have successfully stormed bulwarks from which others armed with sword and excommunication have been repulsed.”

“For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.”

“You have locked the chain around the heart that loves you; for the perpetual search for love remains hollow.”

“This book is a spiritual guide for the man who wishes to learn the Way.
My heart has been inclined to the Way of strategy from my youth onwards. I have devoted myself to training my hand, tempering my body, and attaining the many spiritual attitudes of sword fencing. If we watch men of other schools discussing theory, and concentrating on techniques with the hands, even though they seem skilful to watch, they have not the slightest true spirit.
Of course, men who study in this way think they are training the body and spirit, but it is an obstacle to the true Way, and its bad influence remains for ever.”

“I have loved others, and I do love many, Sassenach—but you alone hold all my heart, whole in your hands,” he said softly. “And you know that.”

“She's a good hearted woman in love with a good timin' man.
She loves him in spite of his ways she don't understand.
With teardrops & laughter they pass through this world hand in hand,
A good hearted woman, lovin' a good timin' man.”

“We are told by the word of the Gospel that in this His fold there are two swords—a spiritual, namely, and a temporal. […] Both swords, the spiritual and the material, therefore, are in the power of the Church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the Church, the other by the Church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.”
In hac ejusque potestate duos esse gladios, spiritualem videlicet et temporalem, evangelicis dictis instruimur. […] Uterque ergo est in potestate ecclesiae, spiritualis scilicet gladius et materialis. Sed is quidem pro ecclesia, ille vero ab ecclesia exercendus, ille sacerdotis, is manu regum et militum, sed ad nutum et patientiam sacerdotis.

“I loved him in a way you can really on do the first time around. It's the kind of love that doesn't know better and doesn't want to - it's dizzy and foolish and fierce.”