The advocates of literal interpretation have been the most efficacious enemies of those doctrines whose nature they profess to venerate.

Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

Whatever strengthens and purifies the affections, enlarges the imagination, and adds spirit to sense, is useful.

For love and beauty and delight, there is no death nor change.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; envy and calumny and hate and pain, and that unrest which men miscall delight, can touch him not and torture not again; from the contagion of the world's slow stain, he is secure.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone.