There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever only rejoices me, and the heart...

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

The cardinal virtue of a teacher (is) to protect the pupil from his own influence

For each thorn, there’s a rosebud… for each twilight a dawn… for each trial the strength to carry on, For each stormcloud a rainbow… for each shadow the sun… for each parting sweet memories when...

We never touch but at points.

Reality is a sliding door.

The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but deliverance from fear

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

a word of contempt often in his mouth.

Our best thoughts come from others.

Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest knows nothing.

Knowledge exists to be imparted

All necessary truth is its own evidence.

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody

The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century

The child with his sweet pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to a whistle or a painted chip, to...

The mind does not create what it perceives, any more than the eye creates the rose

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them

The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.

The true poem is the poet’s mind.

There never was a child so lovely, but his mother was glad to get him asleep.

All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.

The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Let us even bid our dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, “Who are you? Unhand me: I will be dependent no more.” Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we part only to...

We cannot approach beauty. Its nature is like opaline doves’-neck lustres, hovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the most excellent things, which all have this rainbow character, defying all attempts at appropriation and use.

The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind.

A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate, planting tenderness, hope and eloquence in all whom she approaches.

The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

PoetTo mask the fiery thought,in simple words succeeds.For still the craft of genius is,To mask a king in weeds

To laugh often and much,to win the respect of the intelligent peopleand the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest criticsand endure the betrayal of false friends;to appreciate beauty;to find the best in...

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his...

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire.

New York is a sucked orange.

To be simple is to be great

Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.

Imitation is suicide