In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

The instinct of the people is right.

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested, - "But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the devil's child, I will live then from the devil.'

For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

The miracles of genius always rest on profound convictions which refuse to be analyzed.