There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this -- that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made -- not to understand -- but to feel -- as crime.
It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
We loved with a love that was more than love.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.