A man has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together adding to it shaping it and one's religion is never complete and final it seems but must always be undergoing modification.

The Christian religion though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

This week the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years. People have been longing for this moment because it symbolises a turning point in China's relationship with the outside world.

Tonight we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers or the power of our military or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is I think the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.

I think the reaction to a World War II situation would be the same today as it was in 1942. Initially people would question but once patriotism got stirred up the whole thing would gather momentum and we'd all pull together.

Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains but like them they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.

I'd wake up in the morning and I would think 'Where am I?' I'd have to gather myself.

A silent man is easily reputed wise. A man who suffers none to see him in the common jostle and undress of life easily gathers round him a mysterious veil of unknown sanctity and men honor him for a saint. The unknown is always wonderful.

I never yet feared those men who set a place apart in the middle of their cities where they gather to cheat one another and swear oaths which they break.