When a man thinks happily, he finds no foot-track in the field he traverses. All spontaneous thought is irrespective of all else.

Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won.

Style is only the frame to hold your thoughts. It is like the sash of a window; if heavy, it will obscure the light.

The greatest genius is the most indebted person.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable.

Spoons and skimmers you can be undistinguishably together; but vases and statues require each a pedestal for itself.