A human being should beware how he laughs, for then he shows all his faults.

Convert life into truth.

For, the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them, and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist, and afterwards see them as appearances in nature, and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of thought.

Shakspeare is the only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us; that is, to our most apprehensive and sympathetic hour.

Literature is the effort of man to indemnify himself for the wrongs of his condition.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

The philosophy of waiting is sustained by all the oracles of the universe.