The heart has a yearning for the unknown, a longing to penetrate the deep shadow and the winding glade, where, as it seems, no human foot has been.
The heart looks into space to be away from earth.
To the soul, there is no past and no future; all is, and will be ever, in now. For artificial purposes time is mutually agreed on, but there is really no such thing.
This sunlight linked me through the ages to that past consciousness.
If every plant and flower were found in all places, the charm of locality would not exist. Everything varies, and that gives the interest.
The lover of nature has the highest art in his soul.
No tyrant, however evil, has yet lacked ready hands to execute his most abominable will. To read how eagerly men have rushed to serve the despot is the bitterest, the saddest matter of history; it is the saddest sight in our own day.
A kestrel can and does hover in the dead calm of summer days, when there is not the faintest breath of wind. He will, and does, hover in the still, soft atmosphere of early autumn, when the gossamer falls in showers, coming straight down as if it were raining silk.
Now is eternity; now is the immortal life.
I desire a greatness of soul, an irradiance of mind, a deeper insight, a broader hope.
Science, as illustrated by the printing press, the telegraph, the railway, is a double-edged sword. At the same moment that it puts an enormous power in the hands of the good man, it also offers an equal advantage to the evil disposed.
A man, to read, must read alone. He may make extracts, he may work at books in company; but to read, to absorb, he must be solitary.
That I may have the soul-life, the soul-nature, let divine beauty bring to me divine soul.
Some, I verily believe, delight to be slave-men; it is a joy to them, and they would not change their condition; not only miserable village wretches, but men in good position, well-to-do sycophants.
Beauty - what is beauty, forsooth? Form and color; that is, surface only. Fortune - what is fortune? Nothing is ever a pleasure or a real profit to him who has to labour for it. Truth - you die in the pursuit, and the sea beats the beach as it did a thousand years ago. The stolid are alone happy.
Ever since the world began, it has been the belief of mankind that desolate places are the special haunt of supernatural beings.
There are people in this servile world who will endure any trampling, and at the first beck rush delightedly to proffer their assistance.
It is easier to speak to those who have had similar experiences than to those who are as yet ignorant.
The impression left after watching the motions of birds is that of extreme mobility - a life of perpetual impulse checked only by fear.
I believe in the human form; let me find something, some method, by which that form may achieve the utmost beauty.
