In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is thereforeuseful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.

Although knaves win in every political struggle, although society seems to be delivered over from the hands of one set of criminals into the hands of another set of criminals, as fast as the government is changed, and the march of civilization is a train of felonies, yet, general ends are somehow answered.

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind, he has descended into the secrets of all minds.

True wit never made us laugh.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles.

Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me.

Every calamity is a spur and a valuable hint.