Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then the prudent also extol.

Not always can flowers, pearls, poetry, protestations, nor even home in another heart, content the awful soul that dwells in clay.

I always seem to suffer some loss of faith on entering cities.

Build therefore your own world.

An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary.

Evermore in the world is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.