Nature is a tropical swamp in sunshine, on whose purlieus we hear the song of summer birds, and see prismatic dewdrops, - but her interiors are terrific, full of hydras and crocodiles.

What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made? A renouncer of lies; a restorer of truth and good? Imitating that great Nature which embossoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, with every breath a new life?

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

To say then, the majority are wicked, means no malice, no bad heart in the observer, but, simply that the majority are unripe, andhave not yet come to themselves, do not yet know their opinion.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.

A divine person is the prophecy of the mind; a friend is the hope of the heart.

An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary.