The populace drags down the gods to their own level.

The poet's habit of living should be set on a key so low that the common influences should delight him.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

The advantage of riches remains with him who procured them, not with the heir.

Man is the will, and woman the sentiment. In this ship of humanity, Will is the rudder, and Sentiment the sail; when woman affects to steer, the rudder is only a masked sail.

In the actual world--the painful kingdom of time and place--dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy.