All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do.... Build, therefore, your own world.

Music is the poor man's Parnassus.

Let us not look east and west for materials of conversation, but rest in presence and unity. A just feeling will fast enough supply fuel for discourse, if speaking be more grateful than silence. When people come to see us, we foolishly prattle, lest we be inhospitable. But things said for conversation are chalk eggs. Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

The great make its feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.

Genius seems to consistent merely in trueness of sight.

In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.

When a happy person comes into the room, it is as if another candle has been lit.