Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men teaches the art of omission and selection.

A little fact is worth a whole limbo of dreams.

One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the world.

There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.

The best effort of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.