A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

Law never made men a whit more just.

I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good.

What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.

If to chaffer and higgle are bad in trade, they are much worse in Love. It demands directness as of an arrow.

Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them.

Good poetry seems so simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.