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

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.

They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin.

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.

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.

To genius life never grows commonplace.

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.