The present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come.

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.

Something of the severe hath always been appertaining to order and to grace; and the beauty that is not too liberal is sought the most ardently, and loved the longest.

I see the rainbow in the sky, the dew upon the grass; I see them, and I ask not why they glimmer or they pass. With folded arms I linger not to call them back; 'twere vain: In this, or in some other spot, I know they'll shine again.

Such is our impatience, such our hatred of procrastination, to everything but the amendment of our practices and the adornment of our nature, one would imagine we were dragging Time along by force, and not he us.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.