The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible.

Ever from one who comes to-morrow Men wait their good and truth to borrow.

Nothing can be preserved that is not good.

Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone; yet he is no more to be credited with the grand result than the acaleph which adds a cell to the coral reef which is the basis of the continent.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

Every really able man, in whatever direction he work,-a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,-if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime.

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.

Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

The imagination is not a talent of some men but is the health of every man.

Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.

Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone-quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.

Never read any book that is not a year old.

In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

Every artist was first an amateur.

Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, - "'T is man's perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die."

Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.

A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word just as good.

God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.

Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.

We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.

In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived!

I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world. No hope so bright but is the beginning of its own fulfillment. 

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Brahma, st. 1 Composed in July 1856 this poem is derived from a major passage of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most popular of Hindu scriptures, and portions of it were likely a paraphrase of an existing translation. Though titled "Brahma" its expressions are actually more indicative of the Hindu concept "Brahman"

Nature paints the best part of a picture, carves the best parts of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.

Genius borrows nobly. When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies: "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."

We boil at different degrees.

I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared "that the sense of being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow".

There is no knowledge that is not power.

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody.

A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs, The world uncertain comes and goes; The lover rooted stays.

Never read any book that is not a year old.

To live without duties is obscene.

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science. 

Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master at some point, and in that, I learn of him.

Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame.

A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.

The best university that can be recommended to a man of ideas is the gauntlet of the mobs.

Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

The heroic cannot be the common, nor can the common be heroic.

What potent blood hath modest May!