Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.

The only gift is a portion of thyself . . . the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb. . . .

Necessity does everything well.

Strange is this alien despotism of Sleep which takes two persons lying in each other's arms & separates them leagues, continents,asunder.

The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no plan of house or state of their own.

The gentleman is a man of truth.

Enlarge not thy destiny, said the oracle: endeavor not to do more than is given thee in charge.