Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.

The definition of genius is that it acts unconsciously, and those who have produced immortal works have done so without knowing how or why.

A woman's vanity is interested in making the object of her choice the god of her idolatry.

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, to gnaw and stifle it.

There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.

The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.

Habit in most cases hardens and encrusts by taking away the keener edge of our sensations: but does it not in others quicken and refine, by giving a mechanical facility and by engrafting an acquired sense?