We do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made, and have to accommodate ourselves to them to be useful at all.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

In a virtuous action, I properly am; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon.

We are made aware that magnitude of material things is relative, and all objects shrink and expand to serve the passion of the poet. Thus, in his sonnets, the lays of birds, the scents and dyes of flowers, he finds to be the shadow of his beloved; time, which keeps her from him, is his chest; the suspicion she has awakened, is her ornament

We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough for literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.