There is a gentle thought that often springs to life in me, because it speaks of you.

Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows.

As the geometer intently seeks to square the circle, but he cannot reach, through thought on thought, the principle he needs, so I searched that strange sight.

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.

The devil is not as black as he is painted.

In that book which is my memory, On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, Appear the words, ‘Here begins a new life’.

It was the hour of morning, when the sun mounts with those stars that shone with it when God's own love first set in motion those fair things