We are like travellers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs. Whilst we see that it always stands ready to clothe what we would say, we cannot avoid the question whether the characters are not significant of themselves.

There is, in all great poets, a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise.

He who would be a great soul in the future, must be a great soul now.

That which we do not believe, we cannot adequately say; even though we may repeat the words ever so often.

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nordrove back Xerxes, nor christianized the world, nor abolished slavery.

Nature is what you may do. There is much you may not do.