I do not call the sod under my feet my country; but language-religion-government-blood-identity in these makes men of one country.

Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

Alas! they had been friends in youth; but whispering tongues can poison truth.

The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.

All men, even the most surly are influenced by affection.