The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing.

The wise man in the storm prays God not for safety from danger but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within which endangers him[,] not the storm without.

If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

He who loves the bristle of bayonets only sees in the glitter what beforehand he feels in his heart. It is avarice and hatred; it is that quivering lip, that cold, hating eye, which built magazines and powder-houses.

We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.

The primary wisdom is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin.