Love is created and preserved by intellectual analysis, for we love only that which is unique, and it belongs to contemplation, not to action, for we would not change that which we love.

If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf

I would have touched it like a child But knew my finger could but have touched Cold stone and water. I grew wild, Even accusing heaven because It had set down among its laws: Nothing that we love over-much Is ponderable to our touch.

Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun.

No man has ever lived that had enough of children's gratitude or woman's love.

but one loses, as one grows older, something of the lightness of one's dreams; one begins to take life up in both hands, and to care more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss perhaps.

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.