As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.

You cannot sincerely try to help another without helping yourself

All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not.

We seldom see anybody who is not uneasy or afraid to live.

Genius has no taste for weaving sand.

Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is thenatural of each, his constitutional excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.