Thy soul shall find itself alone ’Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone— Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness—for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee—and their will Shall overshadow thee: be still. [...]

A man's grammar, like Caesar's wife, must not only be pure, but above suspicion of impurity.

the truth is, I am heartily sick of this life & of the nineteenth century in general. (I am convinced that every thing is going wrong.)

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.

There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell.

I have great faith in fools,— self-confidence my friends will call it.

You are not wrong who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.