Every word was once a poem. Every new relation is a new word.

We aim above the mark, to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it.

Nothing is dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out ofthe window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise.

We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them

In all conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made, as to a third party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is not social; it is impersonal; is God.

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.