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All art is but imitation of nature.
Seneca

LXV



Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o\'ersways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O! how shall summer\'s honey breath hold out,

Against the wrackful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time\'s best jewel from Time\'s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

  O! none, unless this miracle have might,

  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLII



That thou hast her it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly. 

Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her, because thou know\'st I love her;

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love\'s gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross:

  But here\'s the joy; my friend and I are one;

  Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.

 	--William Shakespeare

Founding Fathers Quotes

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and
no property can bear taxation.
John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819