We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.

All poets have signalized their consciousness of rare moments when they were superior to themselves, -when a light, a freedom, a power came to them which lifted them to performances far better than they could reach at other times.

How painful to give a gift to any person of sensibility, or of equality! It is next worst to receiving one

For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy.

Nature is too thin a screen; the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere

Our best history is still poetry.

The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.