... the travel diary of a philosopher.

Why should a man be bad, however much he may lie and deceive? One must certainly take measures to protect oneself; one should not let oneself be deceived, and where the other party is too strong one should restrain him by law, so that authority shall render him harmless. But it is barbarous to judge a man's being by his actions. For who has got to the stage in which his actions are the complete expression of his soul? I have never seen such a man.

—Count Hermann Keyserling, The Travel Diary of a Philosopher, chapter 38. Translated by J. Holroyd Reece.

... the history of England.

His keen sensibility and his powerful imagination made his internal conflicts singularly terrible. Sometimes loud voices from heaven cried out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whispered impious suggestions in his ear. He saw visions of distant mountain tops, on which the sun shone brightly, but from which he was separated by a waste of snow. He felt the Devil behind him pulling his clothes. He thought that the brand of Cain had been set upon him. He feared that he was about to burst asunder like Judas. His mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook like a man in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense, and so long continued.

At length the clouds broke. From the depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which he was himself possessed.

—Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England, Chapter 7. This passage describes John Bunyan.

... a poem.

In the kitchen the sound of raspberries being mashed in the cream
Reminds you of your childhood and all the fantasies you had then!

—Kenneth Koch, "Hearing," from The Pleasures of Peace, 1969.