"As a general rule, Providence seldom vouchsafes to mortals any more than just that degree of encouragement which suffices to keep them at a reasonably full exertion of their powers."
"Why are poets so apt to choose their mates, not for any similarity of poetic endowment, but for qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest handicraftsman as well as that of the ideal craftsman of the spirit? Because, probably, at his highest elevation, the poet needs no human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger."
"What is called poetic insight is the gift of discerning, in this sphere of strangely-mingled elements, the beauty and the majesty which are compelled to assume a garb so sordid."
"Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them."
"he seemed to be in quest for mental food, not heart sustenance."
"The sick in mind, and, perhaps, in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflection of their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, in infinite repetition."
"Possibly, he was in a state of second growth and recovery, and was constantly assimilating nutriment for his spirit and intellect from sights, sounds, and events which passed as a perfect void to persons more practised with the world. As all is activity and vicissitude to the new mind of a child, so might it be, likewise, to a mind that had undergone a kind of new creation, after its longsuspended life."
"When he is cheerful--when the sun shines into his mind--then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls!"
"... for when a man's spirit has been thoroughly crushed, he may be peevish at small offenses, but never resentful of great ones."
"Strength is incomprehensible by weakness, and, therefore, the more terrible."
"Shall we never never get rid of this Past? ... It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body."
"An infinite, inscrutable blackness has annihilated sight! Where is our universe? All crumbled away from us; and we, adrift in chaos, may hearken to the gusts of homeless wind, that go sighing and murmuring about in quest of what was once a world!"
"That Jim Crow there in the window," answered the urchin, holding out a cent, and pointing to the gingerbread figure that had attracted his notice, as he loitered along to school; "the one that has not a broken foot."
"What's that you mutter to yourself, Matthew Maule?" asked Scicpio. "And what for do you look so black at me?""No matter, darky," said the carpenter. "Do you think nobody is to look black but yourself?"
"Possibly, some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement--however serious, however trifling--all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass."
"Jim Crow, moreover, was seen executing his world-renowned dance, in gingerbread."
"It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts."