Most marvelous and enviable is that fecundity of fancy which can adorn whatever it touches, which can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked-for beauty, make flowers bloom even on the brow of the precipice, and, when nothing better can be had, can turn the very substance of rock itself into moss and lichens. This faculty is uncomparingly the most important for the vivid and attractive exhibition of truth to the minds of men.

The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.

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

Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.

... the Power who gave a power, by its mere existence, signifies that it must be brought out towards perfection.

Our capacities, our instincts for this our present sphere are but half developed. Let us be completely natural; before we trouble ourselves with the supernatural.

Some degree of expression is necessary for growth, but it should be little in proportion to the full life.