Quote collection
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"The intellect,-that is miraculous! Who has it, has the talisman: his skin and bones, though they were of the color of night, are transparent, and the everlasting stars shine through, with attractive beams."
"Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire."
"Every man is eloquent once in his life."
"There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world."
"So far as a person thinks; they are free."
"The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts."
"The virtue in most request is conformity."
"Meek young men grow up in libraries."
"Difference of opinion is the one crime which kings never forgive."
"As every man is hunted by his own daemon, vexed by his own disease, this checks all his activity."
"The growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion. The mind that grows could not predict the times, the means, the mode of that spontaneity. God enters by a private door into every individual."
"The beautiful is never plentiful."
"I like the church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; Yet not for all his faith can see, Would I that cowled churchman be."
"It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most refining of all influences. No external advantages, no culture of the tastes, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that delicacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation,--all else is but gilt and cosmetics, beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture."
"The rain comes when the wind calls."
"Great men are sincere."
"Style is only the frame to hold your thoughts. It is like the sash of a window; if heavy, it will obscure the light."
"Society will pardon much to genius and special gifts; but, being in its nature conventional, it loves what is conventional, or what belongs to coming together."
"The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries."
"Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart."