Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that.

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

Let go of the past and go for the future.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. . . . In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was not fitted to endure.

If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services.