We estimate the wisdom of nations by seeing what they did with their surplus capital.

The highest virtue is always against the law.

To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

There are not in the world at any one time more than a dozen persons who read and understand Plato:-never enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet to every generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few persons, as if God brought them written in his hand.

A poem is made up of thoughts, each of which filled the whole sky of the poet in its turn.

The rain comes when the wind calls.