Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!

No work is worse than overwork; the mind preys on itself,--the most unwholesome of food.

I hate the man who eats without knowing what he’s eating. I doubt his taste in more important things.

I cannot sit and think; books think for me.

Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour, I 've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower But 't was the first to fade away. I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well And love me, it was sure to die.

The good things of life are not to be had singly, but come to us with a mixture; like a school-boy's holiday, with a task affixed to the tail of it.

This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, Theres nothing true but Heaven.