Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.

Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

If artists and poets are unhappy, it is after all because happiness does not interest them.

A dream is always simmering below the conventional surface of speech and reflection.

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.

I love moving water, I love ships, I love the sharp definition, the concentrated humanity, the sublime solitude of life at sea. The dangers of it only make present to us the peril inherent in all existence, which the stupid, ignorant, un-travelled land-worm never discovers; and the art of it, so mathematical, so exact, so rewarding to intelligence, appeals to courage and clears the mind of superstition, while filling it with humility and true religion.

The man who would emancipate art from discipline and reason is trying to elude rationality, not merely in art, but in all existence.