In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,--no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

Philanthropies and charities have a certain air of quackery.

Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.

A scholar is a man with his inconvenience, that, when you ask him his opinion of any matter, he must go home and look up his manuscripts to know.

We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.

The dogma of the mystic offices of Christ being dropped, and he standing on his genius as a moral teacher, 'tis impossible to maintain the old emphasis of his personality; and it recedes, as all persons must, before the sublimity of the moral laws.