This ennui, for which we Saxons had no name,--this word of France, has got a terrific significance. It shortens life, and bereaves the day of its light.

We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not posses.

The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it....we see literature best from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of affairs, or from a high religion. The field cannot be well seen from within the field.

The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy. Its chief good is for well-mixed people who can enjoy what they find, without question.

My tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so my pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely put them better.

A poem, a sentence, causes us to see ourselves. I be, and I see my being, at the same time.