The soul marching on

His body mouldering in the grave, his soul marching on.
- from a poem about John Brown, lines added over the years but one version is by William W. Patton

John Brown was an American abolitionist who believed that an armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow slavery in the United States. "On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured." 

He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men and inciting a slave insurrection, found guilty on all counts, and was hanged.

If you are interesting in finding out more, try to find this PBS documentary about his war against slavery.

Everything is ecstasy, inside

"It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born." — Jack Kerouac

Solitude

"Your solitude will be a support and a home for you." - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet

"What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours — that is what you must be able to attain." - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter 6, Letters To A Young Poet

Love

"Take love as an illustration. The one who truly loves does not love once and for all. Nor does he use a part of his love, and then again another part. For to change it into small coins is not to use it rightly. No, he loves with all of his love. It is wholly present in each expression. He continues to give it away as a whole, and yet he keeps it intact as a whole, in his heart. Wonderful riches! When the miser has gathered all the world's gold in sordidness—then he has become poor. When the lover gives away his whole love, he keeps it entire—in the purity of the heart." - Sören Kierkegaard (Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing)