A divine person is the prophecy of the mind; a friend is the hope of the heart.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. They lived in their writings, and sotheir house and street life was trivial and commonplace. If you would know their tastes and complexions, the most admiring of their readers most resembles them.

Out of sleeping a waking, Out of waking a sleep.

The time is coming when all men will see that the gift of God to the soul is not a vaunting, overpowering, excluding sanctity, buta sweet, natural goodness, a goodness like thine and mine, and that so invites thine and mine to be and to grow.

Consistency is the bugbear that frightens little minds.

To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.

We ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous parts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all things; which is the mean of many extremes.