My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

The roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.

My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we go on from explanation to explanation, until all is said that words can, and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious assumption.

The charm of fine manners is music and sculpture and picture to many who do not pretend to appreciation of these arts.

The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul

By degrees we may come to know the primitive sense of the permanent objects of nature, so that the world shall be to us an open book, and every form significant of its hidden life and final cause.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.