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

If anything can be invented more excruciating than an English Opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punishment of bearing it.

It was not meant that the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul.

This is the method of genius, to ripen fruit for the crowd by those rays of whose heat they complain.

What I mean by the Muse is that unimpeded clearness of the intuitive powers, which a perfectly truthful adherence to every admonition of the higher instincts would bring to a finely organized human being. It may appear as prophesy or as poesy...should these faculties have free play, I believe they will open up new, deeper and purer sources of joyous inspiration than have as yet refreshed the earth.

Amid all your duties, keep some hours to yourself.

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