The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.

Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me.

The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.

No man gains credit for his cowardly courtesies.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.