He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

A collection of books is the best of all universities.

Professors of the Dismal Science, I perceive the length of your tether is now pretty well run; and I must request you to talk a little lower in the future.

Reality, if rightly interpreted, is grander than fiction.

It is not to taste sweet things; but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations.

Caution is the lower story of prudence.