To genius life never grows commonplace.

There are two kinds of genius. The first and highest may be said to speak out of the eternal to the present, and must compel its age to understand it; the second understands its age, and tells it what it wishes to be told.

Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.

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

A wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.

Year by year, more and more of the world gets disenchanted. Even the icy privacy of the arctic and antarctic circles is invaded. We have played Jack Horner with our earth, till there is never a plum left in it.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity.