The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.

No orator can top the one who can give good nicknames.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.

The sentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presence of certain divine laws. It perceives that this homely game of life we play, covers, under what seem foolish details, principles that astonish.

Proportion is almost impossible to human beings. There is no one who does not exaggerate.

The best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mob.

Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds, in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness.