Rash combat oft immortalizes man; if he should fall, he is renowned in song; but after-ages reckon not the ceaseless tears which the forsaken woman sheds. Poets tell us not of the many nights consumed in weeping, or of the dreary days wherein her anguished soul vainly yearns to call her loved one back.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it!

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a predecessor who attracted me, until at length, after I had molded it

If your treat an individual... as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

So dear night the half of life is, And the fairest half indeed.

Just as, out of habit, one consults a run-down clock as though it were still going, so too one may look at the face of a beautiful woman as though he still loved her.