Listen to music religiously, as if it were the last strain you might hear.

The best poets, after all, exhibit only a tame and civil side of nature. They have not seen the west side of any mountain.

The man of genius knows what he is aiming at; nobody else knows. And he alone knows when something comes between him and his object. In the course of generations, however, men will excuse you for not doing as they do, if you will bring enough to pass in your own way.

Show me a man who feels bitterly toward John Brown, and let me hear what noble verse he can repeat. He'll be as dumb as if his lips were stone.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making a snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown paper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.