The great silent man! Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world,--words with little meaning, actions with little worth,--one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence.

Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain-tricks of custom: but of all of these, perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the miraculous, by simple repetition, ceases to be miraculous.

A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.

Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

He that works and does some Poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of Poet.

Heroism is the divine relation which, in all times, unites a great man to other men.