What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked though locked up in steel
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Shakespeare.
Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky? The west hath opened its gates; the bed of thy repose is there. The waves gather to behold thy beauty; they lift their trembling heads; they see thee lovely in thy sleep; but they shrink away with fear. Rest in thy shadowy cave, O Sun! and let thy return be in joy.—Macpherson.
I see before me the Gladiator lie;
He leans upon his hand; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him; he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.—Byron.
If a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.—De Quincey.
Assemble all the poor men of your sort;
Draw them to Tiber banks and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.—Shakespeare.
No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.—Job.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.—Byron.
The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.—Dekker.