Just, harmonious, temperate as is the spirit of liberty, there is in the name and mere notion of it a vagueness so opposite to the definite clearness of the moral law.

Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week.

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.

Instead of watching the bird as it flies above our heads, we chase his shadow along the ground; and, finding we cannot grasp it, we conclude it to be nothing.

We look to our last sickness for repentance, unmindful that it is during a recovery men repent, not during a sickness.

When we skim along the surface of history we see little but the rough barren rocks that rise out of it.

Friendship is Love with jewels on, but without either flowers or veil.