To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.

A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother's face.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good.

I take a dose of mathematics every day to prevent my brain from becoming quite soft.

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.