[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] ... for finish, and melody of versification, there is nothing approaching to Miss Barrett in this day, or in any other - also for diction. Her words paint.

We may admire people for being wise, but we like them best when they are foolish.

The power of admiring whatever is deserving of admiration, the nice and quick perception of the beautiful and the true, is one of the highest and noblest of our faculties, born of taste, and knowledge, and wisdom, or rather it is taste, and wisdom, and knowledge, in one rare and great combination.

Enthusiasm is very catching, especially when it is very eloquent.

I detest so much ... those persons, who insist upon telling you everything - who labor every point, as the lawyers say, as if they thought all excellence consisted in length.

Autumn glows upon us like a splendid evening; it is the very sunset of the year.

Trees and children are, of all living things, those whose growth soonest makes one feel one's age.