I have wrought great use out of evil tools.

Our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots.

Genius in the poet, like the nomad of Arabia, ever a wanderer, still ever makes a home where the well or the palm-tree invites it to pitch the tent. Perpetually passing out of himself and his own positive circumstantial condition of being into other hearts and into other conditions, the poet obtains his knowledge of human life by transporting his own life into the lives of others.

In how large a proportion of creatures is existence composed of one ruling passion, the most agonizing of all sensations--fear.

No reproach is like that we clothe in a smile, and present with a bow.

He who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth himself the softest consolation, next to that which comes from heaven.

It is a glorious fever, desire to know.