The secret of the world is the tie between person and event. Person makes event and event person.

The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it....we see literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from within the field.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

A day for toil, an hour for sport, but for a friend is life too short.

When some external event raises your spirits and you think good days are preparing for you, do not believe it. It can never be so. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

A cultivated man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which nature works.

The masters painted for joy, and knew not that virtue had gone out of them. They could not paint the like in cold blood. The masters of English lyric wrote their songs so. It was a fine efflorescence of fine powers.