The office of poetry is not to make us think accurately, but feel truly.

It is more true to say that our opinions depend upon our lives and habits, than to say that our lives and habits depend on our opinions.

No one can be great, or good, or happy except through the inward efforts of themselves.

The only revenge which is essentially Christian is that of retaliating by forgiveness.

Tell men that God is love; that right is right, and wrong, wrong; let them cease to admire philanthropy, and begin to love men; cease to pant for heaven, and begin to love God; then the spirit of liberty begins.

Defeat in doing right is nevertheless victory.

The truest definition of evil is that which represents it as something contrary to nature; evil is evil because it is unnatural; a vine which should bear olive-berries, an eye to which blue seems yellow, would be diseased; an unnatural mother, an unnatural son, an unnatural act, are the strongest terms of condemnation.