“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

Clergymen who publish pious frauds in the interest of the church are the orthodox liars of God.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

He who begins by loving Christianity more than Truth, will proceed by loving his sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.

The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive.

Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree.

He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.

Some men are like musical glasses; to produce their finest tones you must keep them wet.

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if,when you awoke,you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.

For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.

The age seems sore from excess of stimulation, just as a day or two after a thorough Debauch and long sustained Drinking-match a man feels all over like a Bruise.

As a man without forethought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so forethought without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast.

Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood.

The faults of great authors are generally excellences carried to an excess.

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged.

You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it – low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion – and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national.

Fear is very often a part of the spiritual path. When people sit down and meditate it’s not at all uncommon for fear to arise at some point.

It takes a lot of beautiful love, uncommon sincerity, and spitfire courage to do that.