Even the most inspired verse, which boasts not without a relative justification to be immortal, becomes in the course of ages a scarcely legible hieroglyphic; the language it was written in dies, a learned education and an imaginative effort are requisite to catch even a vestige of its original force. Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.

The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.

My soul hates the fool whose only passion is to live by rule.

The same battle in the clouds will be known to the deaf only as lightning and to the blind only as thunder.

All beauties are to be honored, but only one embraced.

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.