Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.

Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.

Sweet bird, that shun the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

Sweet bird, that shun the noise of folly, most musical, most melancholy!

Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessors.

Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its predecessors.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am read more

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some read more

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not read more

Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

One often calms one's grief by recounting it.

When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one's mind on the act and the read more

When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one's mind on the act and the doing of it, not one ones' relation to the act or its character or value... One should simply practice concentration of the mind on the act itself, understanding it to be an expedient means for attaining tranquility of mind, realization, insight, and wisdom.