Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all the acts and events that fill time are the definition, and it must be lived.

Most of all, perhaps, we need an intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has anything magical about it, but we cannot study the future.

Oh Trees, Trees, Trees...wake. Don't you remember it? Don't you remember me? Dryads and hamadryads, come out, come [out] to me.

A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.

The real trouble is that 'kindness' is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that 'his heart's in the right place' and 'he wouldn't hurt a fly,' though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy, on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble.

Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.

For prayer is request. The essence of request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.