PASTORAL SILENCE

'There are moments when one must not attempt to console, when the word must not be uttered to parents of murdered children. When one should keep one's mouth shut. "In Rama there was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning., Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."'

Ronald Blythe, Next to Nature, p.440.

THE POWER OF LITURGY

'How is it that something so repeatedly sung, done, or said can remain so spellbinding? Fragments, mere wisps of liturgy, hang about in our hearts and cannot be exercised by unbelief. Familiarity itself becomes unfamiliar. There is no knowing what is happening. Poets know not to grapple with it. To let it be.'

Ronald Blythe, Next to Nature, p.436. 

THE POWER OF PLACE

'We should cleanse our eyes in scenery - use it like lotion.'
Ronald Blythe, Next to Nature, p.388.

SCRIPTURE IS...

'Scripture is a virtual forest and a simple shade, a bare wood and a glorious orchard.'
Ronald Blythe, Next to Nature, p.136.

THE BEST PLACE TO MEDITATE

'Coasts provide the ultimate sites for meditation.'
Ronald Blythe, The Time by the Sea, p.239. 

BEAUTY

'The plainness of her face was itself so total that it had become beautiful.' 

Ronald Blythe (on Imogen Holst), The Time By the Sea, p.109.  

CONTENTMENT

'...one of those people who claim little because they know they have enough.' 

Ronald Blythe (on Fidelity Cranbrook), The Time by the Sea: Aldeburgh 1955-58, p.71.