Why are poets so apt to choose their mates, not for any similarity of poetic endowment, but for qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest handicraftsman as well as that of the ideal craftsman of the spirit? Because, probably, at his highest elevation, the poet needs no human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.

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.

Ugliness without tact is horrible.

Not yet hardened, many young die good.

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.

Earth has one angel less and heaven one more, since yesterday.