Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.

The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.

We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason.

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors.

So true it is, that nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.