Deed done is well begun.

Be like a solid tower whose brave height remains unmoved by all the winds that blow; the man who lets his thoughts be turned aside by one thing or another, will lose sight of his true goal, his mind sapped of its strength.

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

And as he, who with laboring breath has escaped from the deep to the shore, turns to the perilous waters and gazes.

I am made of God, through his Grace. Such that your misery touches me not, Nor does flame of that burning assail me.

In that part of the book of my memory before which little can be read, there is a heading, which says: ‘Incipit vita nova: Here begins the new life’.

I wept not — so to stone I grew within.