The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

When the Master of the universe has points to carry in his government he impresses his will in the structure of minds.

No nation has produced anything like his equal. There is no quality in the human mind, there is no class of topics, there is no region of thought, in which he has not soared or descended, and none in which he has not said the commanding word.

I like man, but not men.

Every man's task [his 'great dream' and impassioned life-goal] is his life preserver.

The greatest delight the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them.

For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings, and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word, a verse, and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem.