Nature is mighty. Art is mighty. Artifice is weak. For nature is the work of a mightier power than man. Art is the work of man under the guidance and inspiration of a mightier power. Artifice is the work of mere man, in the imbecility of his mimic understanding.

Who is fit to govern others? He who governs himself. You might as well have said: nobody.

Some men so dislike the dust kicked up by the generation they belong to, that, being unable to pass, they lag behind it.

Many actions, like the Rhone, have two sources,--one pure, the other impure.

How idle it is to call certain things God-sends! as if there was anything else in the world.

Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology.

What a type of happy family is the family of the Sun! With what order, with what harmony, with what blessed peace, do his children the planets move around him, shining with light which they drink in from their parent's in at once upon him and on one another!