Francis Thompson

An atheist is a man who believes himself an accident.

— Francis Thompson

The devil doesn't know how to sing, only how to howl.

— Francis Thompson

Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.

— Francis Thompson

All things by immortal power. Near of far, to each other linked are, that thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star.

— Francis Thompson

For we are born in other's pain, and perish in our own.

— Francis Thompson

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in others pain And perish in our own.

— Francis Thompson

Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of to-day. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul; it is to live in a nutshell and to count yourself the king of infinite space; it isTo see a world in a grain of sand,And a Heaven in a wild flower,Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,And eternity in an hour;it is to know not as yet that you are under sentence of life, nor petition that it be commuted into death.

— Francis Thompson