[B]ut in literature, it should be remembered, a thing always becomes his at last who says it best, and thus makes it his own.

Making one object, in outward or inward nature, more holy to a single heart is reward enough for a life; for the more sympathies we gain or awaken for what is beautiful, by so much deeper will be our sympathy for that which is most beautiful,--the human soul!

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.

Sorrow is the great idealizer.

Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.

A wise man travels to discover himself.

If God made poets for anything, it was to keep alive the traditions of the pure, the holy, and the beautiful.