Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

The savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species

The working of revolutions misleads me no more; it is as necessary to our race as its waves to the stream, that it may not be a stagnant marsh. Ever renewed in its forms, the genius of humanity blossoms.

It is easier to make a lady of a peasant-girl than a peasant-girl of a lady.

Touch not the flute when drums are sounding around; when fools have the word, the wise will be silent.

A poet is the creator of the nation around him, he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand to lead them to that world.

To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.