All things are moral; and in their boundless changes have an unceasing reference to spiritual nature.

For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

What is originality? It is being one's self, and reporting accurately what we see and are.

So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.

If the vast and the spiritual are omitted, so are the practical and the moral.

Life will show you masks that are worth all your carnivals