Men are born to write. The gardener saves every slip, and seed, and peach-stone: his vocation is to be a planter of plants. Not less does the writer attend his affair. Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him as a model, and sits for its picture. He counts it all nonsense that they say, that some things are undescribable. He believes that all that can be thought can be written, first or last; and he would report the Holy Ghost, or attempt it.

Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding

Cunning is strength withheld.

The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him.

No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.

But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.

The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.