Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

That genius is feeble which cannot hold its own before the masterpieces of the world.

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

In an audience of rough people a generous sentiment always brings down the house. In the tumult of war both sides applaud a heroic deed.

Genius is lonely without the surrounding presence of a people to inspire it.

As the spring comes on, and the densening outlines of the elm give daily a new design for a Grecian urn, — its hue, first brown with blossoms, then emerald with leaves, — we appreciate the vanishing beauty of the bare boughs. In our favored temperate zone, the trees denude themselves each year, like the goddesses before Paris, that we may see which unadorned loveliness is the fairest.

Noble discontent is the path to heaven.