The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize or are fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination...without nature-awakened imagination most persons do not really live in the world, they merely pass through it as they live dull lives of quiet desperation.

Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.

There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.

We can conceive of nothing more fair than something which we have experienced.

I am not afraid of praise, for I have practiced it on myself.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.