I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone.

I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.

If we use common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners, or everyday clothes, hung up in a sacred place.

Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?

Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans - which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.

To the receptive soul the river of life pauseth not, nor is diminished.

In so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider it is hard to find rules without exception.