One more royal trait properly belongs to the poet. I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. He loves virtue, not for its obligation, but for its grace; he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy and hilarity, he sheds over the universe.

To a dull mind all of nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.

Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints.

God is Unity, but always works in variety.

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable.

The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment.

He who has acquired the ability, may wait securely the occasion of making it felt and appreciated, and know that it will not loiter.