Language,-human language,-after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature,-sometimes not so adequate.

Life is made up of marble and mud.

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.

The love of posterity is the consequence of the necessity of death. If a man were sure of living forever here, he would not care about his offspring.

In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it... She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.

To do nothing is the way to be nothing.