Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.
An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever I could not sing an air to save my life but I have the intensest delight in music and can detect good from bad.
There are four kinds of readers. The first is like the hourglass; and their reading being as the sand, it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second is like the sponge, which imbi...
Sir, I admit your general rule, That every poet is a fool, But you yourself may serve to show it, That every fool is not a poet.
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves...
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry that is, prose = words in their best order - poetry = the best words in the best order.
Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor.
What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awake, you had the fl...
He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.
A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imaginat...
As I live and am a man, this is an unexaggerated tale - my dreams become the substances of my life.
The wise only possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
Only the wise possess ideas the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing did certain persons die before they sing.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile a kind look a heartfelt compliment and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and...
A man may devote himself to death and destruction to save a nation but no nation will devote itself to death and destruction to save mankind.
As a man without forethought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so forethought without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast.- (1772-1834)
He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all.
The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are...