Those who best know human nature will acknowledge most fully what a strength light hearted nonsense give to a hard working man

Motives are symptoms of weakness, and supplements for the deficient energy of the living principle, the law within us. Let them then be reserved for those momentous acts and duties in which the strongest and best-balanced natures must feel themselves deficient, and where humility no less than prudence prescribes deliberation.

Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.

To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality.

Brute animals have the vowel sounds; man only can utter consonants.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark.

When a man mistakes his thoughts for persons and things, he is mad.