The secret of genius is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life,in arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use.

My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.

Cut these words and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive.

In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its cradle. Nature stretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness.

In politics and in trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks.

The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.

Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought.