Every dew-drop and rain-drop had a whole heaven within it.
Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts.
The morrow was a bright September morn; The earth was beautiful as if newborn; There was nameless splendor everywhere, That wild exhilaration in the air, Which makes the passers in the city street Congratulate each other as they meet.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth’s firmament do shine.
All the means of action – the shapeless masses – the materials – lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.
To be left alone, and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution.
O thou sculptor, painter, poet! Take this lesson to thy heart: That is best which lieth nearest; Shape from that thy work of art.
Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great.
There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it.
Nothing that is can pause or stay.
A man must be of a very quiet and happy nature, who can long endure the country; and, moreover, very well contented with his own insignificant person.
One half the world must sweat and groan that the other half may dream.
With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.
O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried!
A word that has been said may be unsaid-it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.
The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright. The house is full of life and light.
Safe from temptation, safe from sin’s pollution, She lives whom we call dead.
Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.
Death is the chillness that precedes the dawn; We shudder for a moment, then awake In the broad sunshine of the other life.
If I am not worth the wooing, I am surely not worth the winning.