The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Some folk want their luck buttered.

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.

No one can read with profit that which he cannot learn to read with pleasure.

My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own.

Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would.

Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

The sky was clear - remarkably clear - and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.