Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.

Grief alone can teach us what is man.

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.

A man is already of consequence in the world when it is known that we can implicitly rely upon him. Often I have known a man to be preferred in stations of honor and profit because he had this reputation: When he said he knew a thing, he knew it, and when he said he would do a thing, he did it.

Fine natures are like fine poems; a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on.

Sooner mayest thou trust thy pocket to a pickpocket than give loyal friendship to the man who boasts of eyes to the heart never mounts in dew! Only when man weeps he should be alone, not because tears are weak, but they should be secret. Tears are akin to prayer,--Pharisees parade prayers, imposters parade tears.

A man of genius is inexhaustible only in proportion as he is always renourishing his genius.