Humor, however broad and genial, takes a narrower view than enthusiasm.

I have made a very rude translation of the Seven against Thebes, and Pindar too I have looked at, and wish he was better worth translating. I believe even the best things are not equal to their fame. Perhaps it would be better to translate fame itself,--or is not that what the poets themselves do? However, I have not done with Pindar yet.

What a glorious time they must have in that wilderness, far from mankind and election day!

You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

Be it life or death, we crave only reality.