Incredulity robs us of many pleasures, and gives us nothing in return.

The secret of force in writing lies not so much in the pedigree of nouns and adjectives and verbs, as in having something that you believe in to say, and making the parts of speech vividly conscious of it.

Reading Chaucer is like brushing through the dewy grass at sunrise.

The riches of scholarship, the benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, so they cannot, be alienated.

There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.

The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us.

True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!