O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is a little fault!

In judgement be ye not too confident, Even as a man who will appraise his corn When standing in a field, ere it is ripe.

Reason flies When following the senses, on clipped wings.

Open your mind to what I shall disclose, and hold it fast within you; he who hears, but does not hold what he has heard, learns nothing. Beatrice - Canto V 40-42

Art, as far as it is able, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild.

In that part of the book of my memory before the which is little that can be read, there is a rubric, saying, Incipit Vita Nova. Under such rubric I find written many things; and among them the words which I purpose to copy into this little book; if not all of them, at the least their substance.

Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always.