Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to the healthy ear.

Among the multitude of scholars and authors, we feel no hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration; they have a light, and know not whence it comes, and call it their own; their talent is some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member, so that their strength is a disease.

Sitting back in the evening, stargazing and stroking your dog, is an infallible remedy.

Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter theunion, the smaller and the more pitiful he is. But leave him alone, to recognize in every hour and place the secret soul, he will go up and down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, the work will be done with concert, though no man spoke.

Every word was once a poem.

To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul.

The solitary knows the essence of the thought, the scholar in society only its fair face.