Shame on those who remain unmoved, whose pace fails to quicken, on entering one of these old habitations, a manor-house falling to wrack and ruin or a desecrated church!

There is, I find, something very evocative about ruins - particularly recent ones. (introduction to "Calico Black, Calico Blue")

The stones here speak to me, and I know their mute language. Also, they seem deeply to feel what I think. So a broken column of the old Roman times, an old tower of Lombardy, a weather-beaten Gothic piece of a pillar understands me well. But I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins.

He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze; he loved the craggy ruins bound together by ivy, those dark halls, and any appearance of death and destruction. Having fallen so far from so high a position, he loved anything that had also fallen from a great height

My beautiful proof lies all in ruins.

My horse had to make up a lot of ground. It was unbelievable, the ground we had to make up. If that didn't happen, I think we could have gotten to him. He only beat us by three lengths. He may still have beaten us, but it would have been a much better race.