“Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing.”

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

What are a handful of reasonable men against a crowd with stones in their hands?

Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on my face!

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us.

Enveloped in a common mist, we seem to walk in clearness ourselves, and behold only the mist that enshrouds others.

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.

The right to rebellion is the right to seek a higher rule, and not to wander in mere lawlessness.

Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.

Men outlive their love, but they don’t outlive the consequences of their recklessness.

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

Being gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit.

Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.

I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet.

Hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

Fortune favors the brave; and the world certainly gives the most credit to those who are able to give an unlimited credit to themselves.

Poetry gives most pleasure when only generally and not perfectly understood.

Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.

The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.