It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground, and rising through the house to the heavens; evenafter the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

The Iliad represents no creed nor opinion, and we read it with a rare sense of freedom and irresponsibility, as if we trod on native ground, and were autochthones of the soil.

A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.