Self-love is, in almost all men, such an over-weight that they are incredulous of a man's habitual preference of the general good to his own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.

It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.

The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain, or meadow of space, was strown with these flowers we call suns, and moons, and stars; why the deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for, in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought.

There is really no insurmountable barrier save your own inherent weakness of purpose.

You do not get power so that you can go out and do things, you go out and do things and you will get the power

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.

Such is the active power of good temperament! Great sweetness of temper neutralizes such vast amounts of acid.