It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

I make it my business to extract from Nature what ever nutriment she can furnish me.... I milk the sky and the earth.

It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone.

Every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition, has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food

I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.