How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness, no sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and back again from the distant to the near?

Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

trouble always seems heavier when it is only one's thought and not one's bodily activity that is employed about it.

Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

Mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory is on the right side.

After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.