"When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, / He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; / An' what he thought 'e might require, / 'E went an' took - the same as me!"
"For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, they arrive at their conclusions -- largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; but sometimes in a smoking room, one learns why things were done."
"We ain't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, Why single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints"
"Call a truce, then, to our labors -- let us feast with friends and neighbors, and be merry as the custom of our caste; for if ''faint and forced the laughter,'' and if sadness follow after, we are richer by one mocking Christmas past."
"There rise her timeless capitals of empires daily born, whose plinths are laid at midnight and whose streets are packed at morn; and here come tired youths and maids that feign to love or sin in tones like rusty razor blades to tunes like smitten tin."
"But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die."
"We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart; / But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: `It's clever, but is it Art?'"
"But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humor saves him whole The cynic devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul; That bids him flout the Law he makes, That bids him make the Law he flouts, Till, dazed by many doubts, h"
"And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves "It's pretty, but is it Art?"
"If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son."
"If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'"
"Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places, and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight, they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand the fire of one cannon ball, than a volley composed of such a shower of bullets."