Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.
— James Russell Lowell
Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.
True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.
Creativity is not the finding of a thing, but the making something out of it after it is found.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
Freedom is the only law which genius knows.
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
There are two kinds of weakness, that which breaks and that which bends.
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.
Good luck is the willing handmaid of a upright and energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
It is the privilege of genius that life never grows common place, as it does for the rest of us.
To educate the intelligence is to expand the horizon of its wants and desires.
What a sense of security in an old book which time has criticized for us.
As life runs on, the road grows strange with faces new - and near the end. The milestones into headstones change, Neath every one a friend.
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
What men prize most is a privilege, even if it be that of chief mourner at a funeral.
He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.
Toward no crimes have men shown themselves so cold- bloodedly cruel as in punishing differences of belief.
Children are God's Apostles, sent forth, day by day, to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.
If youth be a defect, it is one that we outgrow only too soon.
Folks never understand the folks they hate.
Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.
The surest plan to make a man is, think him so.
Light is the symbol of truth.
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.
The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
A weed is no more than a flower in disguise, Which is seen through at once, if love give a man eyes.
Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.
And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.
The eye is the notebook of the poet.
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
Every person born into this world their work is born with them.
Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.
I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day, which must be done, whether you like it or not.
Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.
Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
Fate loves the fearless.
