The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.

The best nations are those most widely related; and navigation, as effecting a world-wide mixture, is the most potent advancer ofnations.

Things have their laws as well as men, and things refuse to be trifled with.

In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim... The details, the prose of nature, he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendour.

With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world, and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with Zeno and Arrian, than with persons in the house.

You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house.

Some men at the approach of a dispute neigh like horses. Unless there be an argument, they think nothing is doing. Some talkers excel in the precision with which they formulate their thoughts, so that you get from them somewhat to remember; others lay criticism asleep by a charm. Especially women use words that are not words,--as steps in a dance are not steps,--but reproduce the genius of that they speak of; as the sound of some bells makes us think of the bell merely, whilst the church chimes in the distance bring the church and its serious memories before us.