“Oh, the difficulty of fixing the attention of men on the world within them!”

The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he understands their arguments, and sympathies with their just feelings.

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; – poetry = the best words in the best order.

As it must not, so genius cannot be lawless; for it is even that constitutes its genius – the power of acting creatively under laws of its own origination.

Man is distinguished from the brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect:–for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty.

Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and all truth is a species of revelation

That gracious thing, made up of tears and light.

And in today already walks tomorrow.

Be not merely a man of letters! Let literature be an honorable augmentations to your arms, not constitute the coat or fill the escutcheon!

I may not hope from outward forms to win / The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.

Nature has her proper interest; and he will know what it is, who believes and feels, that every Thing has a Life of its own, and that we are all one Life.

Those who best know human nature will acknowledge most fully what a strength light hearted nonsense give to a hard working man

Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

My team and I have reunited two elements that coexist with difficulty: respect and affection, because when they love you they don’t respect you and when they respect you they don’t love you.

A man’s love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit.

This party is a bit like an old stagecoach. If you drive along at a rapid rate everyone aboard is either so exhilarated or so seasick that you don’t have a lot of difficulty.

I only used a cell phone for the first time after I was released. I had difficulty coping with it because it seemed so small and insubstantial.

God can so fill a man with His Spirit that he can laugh and believe in the face of a thousand difficulties.

Our bread is not only the Word of God, our meat is not only to do His will, our bread is also…the difficulties that are in our way.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.