Fancy, an animal faculty, is very different from imagination, which is intellectual. The former is passive; but the latter is active and creative. Children, the weak minded, and the timid are full of fancy. Men and women of intellect, of great intellect, are alone possessed of great imagination.
Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.
Avoid singularity. There may often be less vanity in following the new modes than in adhering to the old ones. It is true that the foolish invent them, but the wise may conform to, instead of contradicting, them.
I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated!
Only just the right quantum of wit should be put into a book; in conversation a little excess is allowable.
It may be said that it is with our thoughts as with our flowers. Those whose expression is simple carry their seed with them; those that are double by their richness and pomp charm the mind, but produce nothing.
A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition.
Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.
If authorities were well organized, there would not be an Unknown Warrior.
He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.
Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.
How many books there are whose reputation is made that would not obtain it were it now to make?
When credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect.
Genuine bon mots surprise those from whose lips they fall, no less than they do those who listen to them.
Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.
In the interchange of thought use no coin but gold and silver.
Words become luminous when the poet's finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.
There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.
Tenderness is the rest of passion.
To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.
The talkative man speaks from his mouth, the eloquent man speaks from his heart.
Our ideals, like pictures, are made from lights and shadows.
We disjoint the mind like the body.
I love prudence very little, if it is not moral.
The Bible remained for me a book of books, still divine - but divine in the sense that all great books are divine which teach men how to live righteously.
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