Never pursue literature as a trade.
The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable. It is no doubt a sublimer effort of genius than the Greek style; but then it depends much more on execution for its effect.
And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, and God of all?
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
Farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.
During the act of knowledge itself, the objective and subjective are so instantly united, that we cannot determine to which of the two the priority belongs.
The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God’s wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so.
Joy rises in me, like a summer’s morn.
Ah why refuse the blameless bliss? Can danger lurk within a kiss?
Laughter is equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so is there a laugh of terror and a laugh of merriment.
Be not merely a man of letters! Let literature be an honorable augmentations to your arms, not constitute the coat or fill the escutcheon!
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. He cannot stop at the beast. The most savage of men are not beasts; they are worse, a great deal worse.
Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason.
No sound is dissonant which tells of life.
Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea! every thing that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, whereso’er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.
O lady! we receive but what we give And in our life alone does Nature live.
A wild rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer well agree.
It is the duty of the Judge in criminal trials to take care that the verdict of the jury is not founded upon any evidence except that which the law allows.
As long as we have to administer the law we must do so according to the law as it is. We are not here to make the law.
What is one man’s gain is another’s loss.