When a man becomes a conformist, he is sacrificing the richness of independent thinking.

No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it.

Coal lay in ledges under the ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass brings it to the surface. We may well call it black diamonds. Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate.

Poetry being ... when we look from the center outward.

It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history.

Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the intimated purpose, express character.

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