Facts are all accidents. They all might have been different. They all may become different. They all may collapse altogether.

Towers in a modern town are a frill and a survival; they seem like the raised hands of the various churches, afraid of being overlooked, and saying to the forgetful public, Here I am! Or perhaps they are rival lightning rods, saying to the emanations of divine grace, "Please strike here!

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.

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

Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.

For a man who has done his natural duty, death is as natural as sleep.

The Universe, so far as we can observe it, is a wonderful and immense engine; its extent, its order, its beauty, its cruelty, makes it alike impressive.