You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does.

The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.

We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears!

You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.

When men do not love their hearth, nor reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonoured both ... Our God is a house-hold God, as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man's dwelling.

The imagination is never governed, it is always the ruling and divine power.