Mother

"In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee."

--George Eliot 

 

[In your charity, dear friends, please pray for the soul of Phyllis, beloved wife, mother, and grandmother. She passed into Eternity early this morning, leaving behind, among others, a brave and faithful son who I am honored to call my friend. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, rest in peace.]   

Tenderness

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
--T. S. Eliot

However things may seem

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Gift of Making Friends

Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one's self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.

--Thomas Hughes

Snow

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

Silent, and soft, and slow 

Descends the snow. 

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You must learn

You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.
--George MacDonald in The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Angels

We are like children, who stand in need of masters to enlighten us and direct us; and God has provided for this, by appointing his angels to be our teachers and guides.
--Saint Thomas Aquinas