There is no way to re-enchant our lives in a disenchanted culture except by becoming renegades from that culture and planting the seeds for a new one.

A few moments of silence may be all the meditation we need at times. Our homes could have a little space for withdrawal and quiet, and even a small garden could offer some distance from noise.

With what a deep devotedness of woe I wept thy absence - o'er and o'er again Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain, And memory, like a drop that, night and day, Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!

[Angels] guide us to become spiritual people for the pleasure of it... because the spiritual life itself has a great deal of beauty and real satisfaction, even pleasure. And this is what the soul needs.

Let me define a garden as the meeting of raw nature and the human imagination in which both seek the fulfillment of their beauty. Every sign indicates that nature wants us and wishes for collaboration with us, just as we long for nature to be fulfilled in us. If our original state was to live in a garden, as Adam and Eve did, then a garden signals our absolute origins as well as our condition of eternity, while life outside the garden is time and temporality.

Every season hath its pleasure; Spring may boast her flowery prime, Yet the vineyard's ruby treasuries Brighten Autumn's sob'rer time.

Pythagoras asks that we not let a friend go lightly, for whatever reason. Instead, we should stay with a friend as long as we can, until we're compelled to abandon him completely against our will. It's a serious thing to toss away money, but to cast aside a person is even more serious. Nothing in human life is more rarely found, nothing more dearly possessed. No loss is more chilling or more dangerous than that of a friend.