depth of feeling

The passion of it, the continual passion of it in this man who, fools said, didn't 'feel'. I have never yet found a man of emotion against whom idiots didn't raise this cry.

- Ezra Pound, 'Henry James', in The Little Review, August 1918

piety as wealth

But since man must needs fall short of what is worthy, I ask of you - as approaching it most nearly - piety, the wealth which is common to all and equal in my eyes, wherein the poorest may, if he be noble-minded, surpass the most illustrious. For this kind of glory depends upon purpose, not upon affluence.

- St Gregory the Theologian, Last Farewell 8

two nativity conceits

The All-Knowing saw that we worship things that were made: He put on a body that was made, that in our custom He might take us captive - and by a body that was made, drew us to the Creator.

....

The frankincense - which had served demons - worshipped Thy Birth. It grieved them with its vapour. It exulted when it saw its Lord - instead of being the incense of delusion, it was an oblation before God!

St Ephraim