Insight is the first condition of Art.

The great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief.

The history of the race is but that of the individual “writ large”.

No deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse judgment. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.

Those works alone can have enduring success which successfully appeal to what is permanent in human nature – which, while suiting the taste of the day, contain truths and beauty deeper than the opinions and tastes of the day.

If the members of a class do not understand – if those directly addressed fail to listen, or listening, fail to recognize a power in the voice – surely the fault lies with the speaker, who, having attempted to secure their attention and enlighten their understandings, has failed in the attempt.

The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer’s mind.

Over the meeting of the lovers I draw a veil. The burst of rapture with which they clasped each other in a wild embrace – the many inquiries – the fond regrets and thrilling hopes – it is out of my power to convey. Let me, therefore, leave them to their happiness.

The air is crowded with birds – beautiful, tender, intelligent birds – to whom life is a song.

Among the many strange servilities mistaken for pieties, one of the least lovely is that which hopes to flatter God by despising the world, and vilifying human nature.