Through the cold time she holds me with evergreen devotion she bears up my whiteness.

-Birney, Earle
  'She Is'.

My common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigor, sometimes not without morosity; yet at mydevotion I loveto usethe civility of my knee, my hat, and hand, withall thoseoutward and sensiblemotions which may express or promote my invisible devotion.

-Browne, SirThomas
^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.1, section 3.

Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is.

-Donne,John
'Good Friday,1613. Riding Westward', published1635.

Despite what even manyartists appear to believe, art is not and should not be merelya skill. It should actually be completelyand utterly the language of our feelings, our frame of mind; indeed, even of our devotion and our prayers.

-Friedrich, Caspar David
Quoted in Caspar David Friedrich1774^1840, Tate Gallery (1972).

The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land.

-Irving,Washington
  Wolfert's Roost,'The Creole Village'.

It is our first duty to serve society, and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls. Ayouthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  Remark, Feb. Quoted in  James Boswell  The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.

I cannot tell where you should look for me, if you send out any pinnace to seek me; because I live at the devotion of the wind and seas. And thus fare you well; desiring God to send us a merry meeting in this world, if it be his good will and pleasure.

-Lancaster, SirJames
c.1594  Letter to the East India Company written on the homeward voyage when the two English ships ran into storms off the Cape of Good Hope. Lancaster's ship lost her rudder. Unwilling torisk theother ship, Lancaster orderedher captain to sail straight home, taking the letter with him.  A voyage with three tall ships, the Penelope, admirall, the Marchant Royall, vice- admiral, and the Edward Bonaventure, rear-admiral, to the East Indies† Begun By M. George Raymond, in the yeere1591, and performed by M.  James Lancaster; and written from the mouth of Edmund Barker of Ipswich (his lieutenant in the sayd voyage) by M. Richard Hakluyt.