The worship of God is not a rule of safetyöit is an adventure of thespirit, a flight after theunattainable.The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.

-Whitehead, Alfred North
  Science and the ModernWorld.

It haunts me, the passage of time. I think time is a mercilessthing.Ithink life is a process of burning oneself out and timeisthefirethat burnsyou.But Ithink thespirit of man is a good adversary.

-Williams,TennesseeThomas Lanier
  In the NewYork Post, 30 Apr.

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou soul, that art the eternity of thought, And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion.

-Wordsworth,William
  'Influenceof NaturalObjects', l.1^4 (publishedinTheFriend 28 Dec1809).

Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society.

-Wordsworth,William
^1805  The Prelude, bk.1, l.340^4 (published1850).

Even so for me a vision sanctified The sway of death; long ere my eyes had seen Thy countenanceöthe still rapture of thy mienö When thou, dear Sister! wert become death's bride: No trace of pain or languor could abide That changeöage on thy brow was smoothedöthy cold Wan cheek at once was privileged to unfold A loveliness to living youth denied. Oh! if within me hope should e'er decline, The lamp of faith, lost Friend! too faintly burn; The may that heaven-revealing smile of thine, The bright assurance, visibly return: And let my spirit in that power divine Rejoice, as, through that power, it ceased to mourn.

-Wordsworth,William
  'November1836', complete poem (published1837).