“Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret roomPiled high with cases in my father’s name;Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my past,Like some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here and thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gap,In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow, in the morning’s dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books!”

“Books, books, books!I had found the secret of a garret roomPiled high with cases in my father’s name;Piled high, packed large,--where, creeping in and outAmong the giant fossils of my past,Like some small nimble mouse between the ribsOf a mastodon, I nibbled here and thereAt this or that box, pulling through the gap,In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,The first book first. And how I felt it beatUnder my pillow, in the morning’s dark,An hour before the sun would let me read!My books!”

“Yes," I answered you last night;"No," this morning, sir, I say.Colours seen by candlelightWill not look the same by day.”

“I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it.”

“My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.”

“Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.”

“If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.”

“An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.”

“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”

“What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?”

“You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.”

“The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, 'Let no one be called happy till his death;' to which I would add, 'Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.'”