The ancestor of every action is a thought.

This body, full of faults, Has yet one great quality: Whatever it encounters in this temporal life depends upon one's actions.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

Evermore in the world is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.

In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, the sun as its cradle. Nature stretches out her arms to embrace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness.

But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.

The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.