The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

There is one art of which people should be masters - the art of reflection.

Humor is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not.

A great mind must be androgynous.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

That gracious thing, made up of tears and light.

The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father.

Religion is the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It alone will gentilize, if unmixed with cant.

Poor little Foal of an oppressed race! I love the languid patience of thy face.

Vulnerability is the portal to feeling. Feeling is the portal to strength.

In fine, that it is not enough to be good, without behaving in such a manner as shall make others acknowledge us to be so.

No, my life is not this precipitous hourthrough which you see me passing at a run.

With five to ten hundred pure-minded young women threading the streets of the village every evening unattended, vice must slink away, like frost before the rising sun.

For many years I was engaged in journalism, writing articles and chronicles for the daily press without ever joining the staff of any newspaper.

In order to be a good writer, you've got to be a bad boss. Self-discipline and stamina are the two major arms in a writer's arsenal.

A musician knows hit material. It has to feel right. Everything has to feel in place. It fulfills you and it makes you feel good. You know it when you hear it.

People enter Web sites hoping to be led somewhere, hoping for a payoff.

I feel that if I kept it secret it might grow in my mind (as poisonous things grow in the dark) and take its place with the other terrible thoughts that gnaw me

If my cup won't hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?