What omniscience has music! So absolutely impersonal, and yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow soothed.

Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.

My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all.

There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world.

A man known to us only as a celebrity in politics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he has some intellectual taste or skill.

We must not inquire too curiously into the absolute value of literature. Enough that it amuses and exercises us. At least it leaves us where we were. It names things, but does not add things.