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If it be the wish of Him in whom all things flourish that my life continue for a few years, I hope to
write of her (Beatrice) that which has never been written of any lady. -Dante on his inspiration for The
Divine ComedyMy gaze on Beatrice, hers on Heaven,
In less time than an arrow strikes the mark,
Flies through the air, loosed from its catch, I found
myself in some place where a wondrous thing.
Absorbed all of my mind, and then my lady,
From whom I could not keep my thirst to know,
turned toward me as joyful as her beauty:
Direct your mind and gratitude, she said,
To God, who raised us up to His first star.
-Dante, The Divine Comedy: Paradise

XCVII



How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December\'s bareness everywhere! 

And yet this time removed was summer\'s time;

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

Like widow\'d wombs after their lords\' decease:

Yet this abundant issue seem\'d to me

But hope of orphans, and unfather\'d fruit;

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are mute:

  Or, if they sing, \'tis with so dull a cheer,

  That leaves look pale, dreading the winter\'s near.

 	--William Shakespeare

You can tell alot about a fellow\'s character by his way of eating
jellybeans.
Ronald Reagan