The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

The dearest events are summer-rain.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

It is an esoteric doctrine of society, that a little wickedness is good to make muscle; as if conscience were not good for hands and legs.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.

The secret of poetry is never explained,— is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, and the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, and knows not that they are such. 'T is as easy as breath. 'T is like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, and none knows what it is.