Thomas Traherne

"Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love."

"All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. …"

"The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and gi…"

"As nothing is more easy than to think, so nothing is more difficult than to think well."

"The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting."

"To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom."

"By this you may see who are the rude and barbarous Indians: For verily there is no savage nation under the cope of Heaven, that is more absurdly barbarous than the Christian World. They that go naked …"

"At present I'm re-reading Traherne's Centuries of Meditations which I think almost the most beautiful book in English."