A man without earnestness is a mournful and perplexing spectacle. But it is a consolation to believe, as we must of such a one, that he is the most effectual and compulsive of all schools.

Toil, feel, think, hope; you will be sure to dream enough before you die, without arranging for it.

Color, in the outward world, answers to feeling in man; shape, to thought; motion, to will. The dawn of day is the nearest outward likeness of an act of creation; and it is, therefore, also the closest type in nature for that in us which most approaches to creation--the realization of an idea by an act of the will.

Every fancy that we would substitute for a reality is, if we saw aright, and saw the whole, not only false, but every way less beautiful and excellent than that which we sacrifice to it.

Superstition moulds nature into an arbitrary semblance of the supernatural, and then bows down to the work of its own hands.

Knowledge, or more expressively truth,--for knowledge is truth received into our intelligence,--truth is an ideal whole.

Faith in a better than that which appears is no less required by art than by religion.