“Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.”

“What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,Its body brevity, and wit its soul.”

“The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer.”

“The frost performs its secret ministry,Unhelped by any wind.”

“Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain.”

“Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.Methinks, its motion in this hush of natureGives it dim sympathies with me who live,Making it a companionable form,Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling SpiritBy its own moods interprets, every whereEcho or mirror seeking of itself,And makes a toy of Thought.”

“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,The fair humanities of old religion,The Power, the Beauty, and the MajestyThat had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished;They live no longer in the faith of reason;But still the heart doth need a language; stillDoth the old instinct bring back the old names;Spirits or gods that used to share this earthWith man as with their friend; and at this day'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,And Venus who brings every thing that's fair.”