It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.

Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage.

You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.

When we come down into the distant village, visible from the mountain-top, the nobler inhabitants with whom we peopled it have departed, and left only vermin in its desolate streets. It is the imagination of poets which puts those brave speeches into the mouths of their heroes.

Why do you ever mend your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend your ways. Let us sing.

For what are the classics but the noblest thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.