Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning.

We must have infinite faith in each other.

Governments show thus how successfully men can be imposed on, even impose on themselves, for their own advantage.

I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.

The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the decay of humanity; the fragrant flower that springs from it, for the purity and courage which are immortal.

I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also.

No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know.