Dreams or illusions, call them what you will, they lift us from the commonplace of life to better things.

Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment; That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.

The story, from beginning to end, I found again in a heart of a friend.

Age is opportunity no less than youth itself.