The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

Don't dissipate your powers; strive to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it will surely repent of every ill-judged outlay.

Let's plunge ourselves into the roar of time, the whirl of accident; may pain and pleasure, success and failure, shift as they will -- it's only action that can make a man.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

There are few who have at once thought and capacity for action. Thought expands, but lames; action animates, but narrows.