Tyrants never perish from tyranny, but always from folly,-when their fantasies have built up a palace for which the earth has no foundation.
There is a desire of property in the sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage and keep alive the arts.
The heart that once has been bathed in love's pure fountain retains the pulse of youth forever.
No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.
There is a gravity which is not austere nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy nor dwells in contraction of heart: but arises from tenderness and hangs upon reflection.
The worse of ingratitude lies not in the ossified heart of him who commits it, but we find it in the effect it produces on him against whom it was committed.
That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.
What is companionship where nothing that improves the intellect is communicated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the model and dimension of the smaller?
Not dancing well, I never danced at all--and how grievously has my heart ached when others where in the full enjoyment of that conversation which I had no right even to partake.
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art.
We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.
Music is God's gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven.
Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.