"Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."

"The Artist always has the masters in his eyes."

"Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified."

"What torments of grief you endured from evils that never arrived."

"One idea lights a thousand candles."

"My evening visitors if they cannot see the clock should find the time in my face."

"Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet."

"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures."

"The cultivated man wise to know and bold to perform is the end to which nature works."

"Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit."

"A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace."

"Nature always wears the colors of the spirit."

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept, Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare, To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare, The shaft we raise to them and thee."

"A friend is one before whom I may think aloud."

"Courage consists of the power of self-recovery."

"The question is whether suicide is the way out or the way in."

"Work and acquire and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance."

"The meaning of good and bad of better and worse is simply helping or hurting."

"One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But that second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself Which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker, there is not other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred."

"No man ever prayed heartily without learning something."

"It is my desire, in the office of a Christian minister, to do nothing which I cannot do with my whole heart. Having said this, I have said all."

"The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when all your arrows are spent."

"The greatest man in history was the poorest."

"Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons."

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession."

"Strong men greet war tempest hard times. They wish as Pindar said to tread the floors of hell with necessities as hard as iron."

"Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings."

"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life."

"Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time."

"Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment."

"Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet."

"If we are related, we shall meet. It was a tradition of the ancient world, that no metamorphosis could hide a god from a god; and there is a Greek verse which runs, "The Gods are to each other not unknown."Friends also follow the laws of divine necessity; they gravitate to each other, and cannot otherwise."

"Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions."

"A great man is always willing to be little."

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting."

"Reality is a sliding door."

"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts, they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."

"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

"The world belongs to the energetic."

"Patience and fortitude conquer all things."

"Pictures must not be too picturesque."

"Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole."

"The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine."

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.... It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

"America is a country of young men."

"All great men come out of the middle classes."

"Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure until the sun grows cold."

"What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find."

"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."