“Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.”

Source: Inkspell

Source: The Secret Garden

Variant: Prayer begins where our power ends.

Source: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), p. 30

Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, opening lines (as reported in The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time by Leslie Pockell)

Book I, line 268 (tr. Munro)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)

The Third Revelation, Chapter 11
Context: It is easy to understand that the best deed is well done: and so well as the best deed is done — the highest — so well is the least deed done; and all thing in its property and in the order that our Lord hath ordained it to from without beginning. For there is no doer but He.
I saw full surely that he changeth never His purpose in no manner of thing, nor never shall, without end. For there was no thing unknown to Him in His rightful ordinance from without beginning. And therefore all-thing was set in order ere anything was made, as it should stand without end; and no manner of thing shall fail of that point.

Source: Born of the Night

Source: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium