When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.

National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten thearrival of that age.

At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.

Humor is one of the elements of genius--admirable as an adjunct; but as soon as it becomes dominant, only a surrogate for genius.

The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.

Who longs in solitude to live, Ah! soon his wish will gain: Men hope and love, men get and give, and leave him to his pain.