If the world grows to worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows to worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldlyness by the world.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.

Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.

No man should leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid.

The classes that wash most are those that work least.

I have myself a poetical enthusiasm for pigs, and the paradise of my fancy is one where pigs have wings. But it is only men, especially wise men, who discuss whether pigs can fly; we have no particular proof that pigs ever discuss it.