The air of summer was sweeter than wine.
Love is a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than animate faith and love, as flowers are the animate springtide.
An enlightened mind is not hoodwinked; it is not shut up in a gloomy prison till it thinks the walls of its dungeon the limits of the universe, and the reach of its own chain the outer verge of intelligence.
The thoughts of Youth are long, long thoughts.
Let us be merciful as well as just.
Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice.
The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.
Each new epoch in life seems an encounter. There is a tussle and a cloud of dust, and we come out of it triumphant or crest-fallen, according as we have borne ourselves.
The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable.
Many critics are like woodpeckers, who, instead of enjoying the fruit and shadow of a tree, hop incessantly around the trunk, pecking holes in the bark to discover some little worm or other.
What discord should we bring into the universe if our prayers were all answered! Then we should govern the world, and not God. And do you think we should govern it better?
Truths that startled the generation in which they were first announced become in the next age the commonplaces of conversation; as the famous airs of operas which thrilled the first audiences come to be played on hand-organs in the streets.
In youth all doors open outward; in old age all open inward.
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.
Some poems are like the Centaurs – a mingling of man and beast, and begotten of Ixion on a cloud.
Silence is a great peacemaker.
O gift of God! O perfect day: Whereon shall no man work, but play; Whereon it is enough for me, Not to be doing, but to be!
God’s voice was not in the earthquake, Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was in the whispering breezes.
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore? What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower?
Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For oh, it is not always May!