26 quotes
The eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)
When the oak-tree is felled, the whole forest echoes with it; but a hundred acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)
Again, and again, we say, the great, the creative and enduring is ever a secret to itself; only the small, the barren and transient is otherwise.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)
The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love ; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)
I came hither [Craigenputtoch] solely with the design to simplify my way of life and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with; as if, observes our author himself, any originality but our own could be expected to content us! In fact all strange thing are apt, without fault of theirs, to estrange us at first view, and unhappily scarcely anything is perfectly plain, but what is also perfectly common.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)