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After I wrote this sonnet there appeared to me a miraculous vision in which I saw things that made me
resolve to say no more about this blessed one until I should be capable of writing about her in a nobler
way. -Dante on his inspiration for The Divine Comedy, after falling short of Beatrice's splendor in the
Vita Nuova

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint
if necessary.
Ronald Reagan


The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the
job.
Ronald Reagan

VI



Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thy self to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

  Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

  To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

 	--William Shakespeare