What has been done in the world - the works of genius - cost nothing. There is no painful effort, but it is the spontaneous flowing of the thought. Shakespeare made his Hamlet as a bird weaves its nest.

It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.

If we walk in the woods, we must feed mosquitoes.

All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.

Manners require time, and nothing is more vulgar than haste.

Our books approach very slowly the things we most wish to know.

A person seldom falls sick but the bystanders are animated with a faint hope that he will die.