It is a flat’ning Thought, that the more we have seen, the less we have to say.
An idea, in the highest sense of that word, cannot be conveyed but by a symbol.
In wonder all philosophy began, in wonder it ends, and admiration fill up the interspace; but the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance, the last is the parent of adoration.
Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action – that the end will sanction any means.
How well he fell asleepl Like some proud river, widening toward the sea; Calmly and grandly, silently and deep, Life joined eternity.
Mr. Lyell’s system of geology is just half the truth, and no more. He affirms a great deal that is true, and he denies a great deal which is equally true; which is the general characteristic of all systems not embracing the whole truth.
Some persons have contended that mathematics ought to be taught by making the illustrations obvious to the senses. Nothing can be more absurd or injurious: it ought to be our never-ceasing effort to make people think, not feel.
Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people.
Ignorance seldom vaults into knowledge, but passes into it through an intermediate state of obscurity, even as night into day through twilight.
How strange and awful is the synthesis of life and death in the gusty winds and falling leaves of an autumnal day!
Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
Alone, Alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never saint took pity on My soul in agony.
A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear, A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet or relief, In word, or sigh, or tear.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze – On me alone it blew.
The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.
That agony returns; And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.
There are three classes into which all the women past seventy that ever I knew were to be divided: 1. That dear old soul; 2. That old woman; 3. That old witch.
The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space.
No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.
I look’d to Heav’n, and try’d to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came and made My heart as dry as dust.