Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive.

Of all human sentiments, enthusiasm creates the most happiness; it is the only sentiment in fact which gives real happiness, the only sentiment which can help us to bear our human destiny in any situation in which we may find ourselves.

Life often seems like a long shipwreck of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love. - The shores of existence are strewn with them.

A Gothic building engenders true religion ... The light, falling through colored glass, the singular forms of the architecture, unite to give a silent image of that infinite mystery which the soul for ever feels, and never comprehends.

The world is the work of a single thought, expressed in a thousand different ways.

One must, so long as there is any life left, back up the character of one's life.

Poetry is the apotheosis of sentiment.