For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusion of poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed is just as valuable to me as a hero of history that existed a...

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.

…ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves.

Society is like a lawn where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it, and fills it with noble inclinations.

They who drink beer will think beer.

Those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home.

Some minds corrode and grow inactive under the loss of personal liberty; others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the poet to become tender and imaginitive in the loneliness of confinement....

Rising genius always shoots out its rays from among the clouds, but these will gradually roll away and disappear as it ascends to its steady luster.

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all!

. . . he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity...

To look upon its grass grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace.

Great minds have purposes; little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; great minds rise above them.

The great British Library –an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature...

Great minds have purpose, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.

Temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

How easy is it for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him, and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles.

The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast...

One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal – every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it...

Marriage is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three.

I’ve had it with you and your emotional constipation!

The scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross around us, these only...

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.

No! no! My engagement is with no bride–the worms! the worms expect me! I am a dead man–I have been slain by robbers–my body lies at Wurtzburg–at midnight I am to be buried–the grave is...

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all.

There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and...