A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. For human beings are not so constituted that they can live without expansion. If they do not get it in one way, they must in another, or perish.

The use of criticism, in periodical writing, is to sift, not to stamp a work.

A man who means to think and write a great deal must, after six and twenty, learn to read with his fingers.

But the golden-rod is one of the fairy, magical flowers; it grows not up to seek human love amid the light of day, but to mark to the discerning what wealth lies hid in the secret caves of earth.

Harmony exists no less in difference than in likeness, if only the same key-note govern both parts.

Plants of great vigor will almost always struggle into blossom, despite impediments. But there should be encouragement, and a free genial atmosphere for those of more timid sort, fair play for each in its own kind.

Artists are always young.