Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance.
Without oblivion, there is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion and memory are wise, when the general soul of man is clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the Past.
The philosopher is he to whom the highest has descended, and the lowest has mounted up; who is the equal and kindly brother of all.
Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.
Every poet, be his outward lot what it may, finds himself born in the midst of prose; h e has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.
An everlasting lodestar, that beams the brighter in the heavens the darker here on earth grows the night.
Roguery is thought by some to be cunning and laughable: it is neither; it is devilish.
No man is born without ambitious worldly desires.
He who cannot withal keep his mind to himself cannot practice any considerable thing whatsoever.
Silence is the eternal duty of man.
Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords?
Professors of the Dismal Science, I perceive the length of your tether is now pretty well run; and I must request you to talk a little lower in the future.
Perfect ignorance is quiet, perfect knowledge is quiet; not so the transition from the former to the latter.
To the wisest man, wide as is his vision. Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and measured square miles.
What this country needs is a man who knows God other than by heresay.
In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a double significance.
A false man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house!
Are not our greatest men as good as lost? The men that walk daily among us, warming us, feeding us, walk shrouded in darkness, mere mythic men.
A frightful dialect for the stupid, the pedant and dullard sort.
Fancy that thou deservest to be hangedthou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be hanged ina hair halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp.