Whenever at a party I have been in the mood to study fools I have always looked for a great beauty: they always gather round her like flies around a fruit stall.

By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

Art is the stored honey of the human soul gathered on wings of misery and travail.

There's a sense of aliveness that comes from connection shared experience. And you see it in every place. You see it when ball players jump up and down gather at home plate hugging and it's not just because they're winning it's that shared moment that feeling of - we enter the world alone we leave alone.

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent of human knowledge that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Another principle is the deepest affections of our hearts gather around some human form in which are incarnated the living thoughts and ideas of the passing age.