A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,Mnot bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club.

Each philosopher, each bard, each actor has only done for me, as by a delegate, what one day I can do for myself.

Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play.

Whenever a true theory appears, it will be its own evidence. Its test is, that it will explain all phenomena.

Cowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin: shuts the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away with us; worse, shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart.

Immitation is suicide.

The first thing a great person does is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.