 Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. |
| Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. |
| The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. |
| There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. |
| Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself. |
| The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected. |
| There is no just and serene criticism as yet. |
| It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature. |
| What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? |
| I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business. |
| Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. |
| If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things. |
| We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes. |
| Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. |
| Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? |
| Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside. |
| What is called genius is the abundance of life and health. |
| Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. |
| Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. |
| God reigns when we take a liberal view, when a liberal view is presented to us. |
