Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.

The good rain, like a bad preacher, does not know when to leave off.

There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.

It happens to us once or twice in a lifetime to be drunk with some book which probably has some extraordinary relative power to intoxicate us and none other; and having exhausted that cup of enchantment we go groping in libraries all our years afterwards in the hope of being in Paradise again.

The cardinal virtue of a teacher [is] to protect the pupil from his own influence.