What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?

I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.

All art is in the last analysis an endeavor to condense as out of the flying vapor of the world an image of human perfection, and for its own and not for the art's sake.

The only enemy of innocence and beauty is time.

A sea captain when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deck-house, thinks much about God and about the world. Away in the valley yonder among the corn and the poppies men may well forget all things except the warmth of the sun upon the face, and the kind shadow under the hedge; but he who journeys through storm and darkness must needs think and think.

The pain others give passes away in their later kindness, but that of our own blunders, especially when they hurt our vanity, never passes away

I whispered, 'I am too young,' and then, 'I am old enough'; wherefore I threw a penny to find out if I might love.