Imagination is the supreme endowment of the poet and romanticist. It is a kind of second sight, which conveys the owner of it to places he has never seen, and surrounds him with strange circumstances of which he is merely the spiritual eyewitness.

Education! Is it education to teach the young that their chances of happiness depend on being richer than their neighbors? Yet that is what it all tends to. Get on! - be successful!

Pleasure for others is the only pleasure possible to me. I assure you I'm quite selfish! - I'm greedy for the happiness of those I love - and if they can't or won't be happy I'm perfectly miserable.

nobody ever intends to be old.

Such lovely warmth of thought and delicacy of colour are beyond all praise, and equally beyond all thanks!

You should always be well and bright, for so you do your best work; and you have so much beautiful work to do. The world needs it, and you must give it!

I must not say what I truly think, or you will tell me I flatter you-but I can only speak what I feel-and very often I cannot even do that when the feeling is very deep.