Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. Murphy's First Corollary If you tell the boss you were late for work because you had a flat tire, the next morning you will have a flat tire.

You must find the ideas that have some promise in them... It is not enough to just have ideas.

I seldom deal in symbolisms; if there be hidden meanings in my verse, they are there without my knowledge.

The willingness to take risks is our grasp of faith.

My first recollection of hearing Wendell Phillips is from my college days, though of course he was always one of my heroes, and I may have heard him before, for we were an anti-slavery family.

A marvellous power of expression over language often distinguishes genius; but Shakespeare in his phrases seems independent of the bonds of language as of the bonds of metre.

Shakespeare has been praised in English more than anything mortal except poetry itself. Fame exhausts thought in his eulogy.