People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be contemplated.

Criticism is infested with the cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact, that some men, namely, poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit to imitate the sayers.

Character is an invincible force, which acts by presence and without means

Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

Men do not believe in the power of education. We do not think we can speak to divine sentiments in man, and we do not try. We renounce all high aims.