Benita Thompson > Benita's Quotes

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“A story must be told or there'll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
― C.S. Lewis

“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”
― Jane Austen

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

“To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
― George Washington

“If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.”
― S.E. Hinton

“The men of the East may spell the stars,
And times and triumphs mark,
But the men signed of the cross of Christ
Go gaily in the dark.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“Sirs, I am but a nameless man,
A rhymester without a home,
Yet since I come of the Wessex clay
And carry the cross of Rome,

I will even answer the mighty earl
That asked of Wessex men
Why they be meek and monkish folk,
And bow to the White Lord's broken yoke;
What sign have we save blood and smoke?
Here is my answer then.

That on you is fallen the shadow,
And not upon the Name;
That though we scatter and though we fly,
And you hang over us like the sky,
You are more tired of victory,
Than we are tired of shame.

That though you hunt the Christian man
Like a hare on the hill-side,
The hare has still more heart to run
Than you have heart to ride.

That though all lances split on you,
All swords be heaved in vain,
We have more lust again to lose
Than you to win again.

Your lord sits high in the saddle,
A broken-hearted king,
But our king Alfred, lost from fame,
Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,
In I know not what mean trade or name,
Has still some song to sing.

Our monks go robed in rain and snow,
But the heart of flame therein,
But you go clothed in feasts and flames,
When all is ice within;

Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb
Men wandering ceaselessly,
If it be not better to fast for joy
Than feast for misery.

Nor monkish order only
Slides down, as field to fen,
All things achieved and chosen pass,
As the White Horse fades in the grass,
No work of Christian men.

Ere the sad gods that made your gods
Saw their sad sunrise pass,
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,
That you have left to darken and fail,
Was cut out of the grass.

Therefore your end is on you,
Is on you and your kings,
Not for a fire in Ely fen,
Not that your gods are nine or ten,
But because it is only Christian men
Guard even heathen things.

For our God hath blessed creation,
Calling it good. I know
What spirit with whom you blindly band
Hath blessed destruction with his hand;
Yet by God's death the stars shall stand
And the small apples grow.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“The men of the east may search the scrolls,
For sure fates and fame,
But the men that drink the blood of God go singing to their shame.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“And he set to rhyme his ale-measures,
And he sang aloud his laws,
Because of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“But out of the mouth of the Mother of God I have seen the truth like fire, This---that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.”
― G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“Verily
Man shall not taste of victory
Till he throws his sword away.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

“But though I lie on the floor of the world,
With the seven sins for rods,
I would rather fall with Adam
Than rise with all your gods.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse