A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life.

Heaven always bears some proportion to earth. The god of the cannibal will be a cannibal, of the crusades a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

Genius seems to consistent merely in trueness of sight.

General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living.

Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.

The world is a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day.

But the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities, but is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility.