Every person has his or her own vocation-talent is the call.

A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.

All things are flowing, even those that seem immovable. The adamant is always passing into smoke. The plants imbibe the materialswhich they want from the air and the ground. They burn, that is, exhale and decompose their own bodies into the air and earth again. The animal burns, or undergoes the like perpetual consumption. The earth burns, the mountains burn and decompose, slower, but incessantly.

It is hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert fires people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone.

If you believe in the soul, do not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of cause and effect.

The only gift is a portion of thyself . . . the poet brings his poem; the shepherd his lamb. . . .

God is our name for the last generalization to which we can arrive.