Quotations

«O you who believe! call to witness between you when death draws nigh to one of you, at the time of making the will, two just persons from among you, or two others from among others than you, if you are travelling in the land and the calamity of death»

«Is not this house [the Tower of London] as nigh heaven as my own?»

«Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, / I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; / And keep the charge of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself: / That the LORD may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel.»

«Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: / So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.»

«Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: / So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.»

«On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: / And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, / And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending upon him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: / Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.»

«For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: / But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.»

«Meanwhile, in the broad and lofty chamber set apart for occasions of import, the Abbot himself was pacing impatiently backwards and forwards, with his long white nervous hands clasped in front of him. His thin, thought-worn features and sunken, haggard cheeks bespoke one who had indeed beaten down that inner foe whom every man must face, but had none the less suffered sorely in the contest. In crushing his passions he had well-nigh crushed himself.»

«For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? / And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? / Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; / Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.»

«Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.»