If a poet would work politically, he must give himself up to a party; and so soon as he does that, he is lost as a poet.

In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable.

He who is resolute conquers grief.

I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn.

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

The works of Lavoisier and his associates operated upon many of us at that time like the Sun's rising after a night of moonshine: but Chemistry is now betrothed to the Mathematics, and is in consequence grown somewhat shy of her former admirers.

The greatest joy of a thinking man is to have searched the explored and to quietly revere the unexplored.