Genius is power, talent is applicability.

The secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily reappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the miscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be regarded,--the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are; and love what is simple and beautiful; independence and cheerful relation, these are the essentials,--these, and the wish to serve,--to add somewhat to the well-being of men.

He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is himself a prophet; no statute book, for he hath the Lawgiver; no money, for he is value itself; no road, for he is at home where he is.

Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

The man for whom the law exists - the man of forms, the conservative - is a tame man.

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.

Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth.