One of the surest evidences of an elevated taste is the power of enjoying works of impassioned terrorism, in poetry, and painting."

Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials.

"This is an age of intellectual sauces, of essence, of distillation. We have "conclusions" without deductions, "abridgments of history" and "abridgments of science" without leading facts."

"When a man is no longer anxious to do better than well, he is done for."

There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.