by force, the
unsuccessful attempts at marriage, it thereby impedes the very
possibility of marriage, which might be furthered by new--and perhaps
happier--attempts.

A regiment of soldiers on parade is, according to some philosophers, a
system.

A man can only become a philosopher, he cannot be one; so soon as he
believes that he is one, he ceases to become one.

The printed page is to thought what a nursery is to the first kiss.

The historian is a prophet looking backward.

There are people whose entire activity consists in saying "No." It
would be no small thing always to be able rightly to say "No," but he
who can do nothing more, surely cannot do it rightly. The taste of
these negationists is an admirable shears to cleanse the extremities
of genius; their enlightenment a great snuffer for the flame of
enthusiasm; and their reason a mild laxative for immoderate passion
and love.

Every great philosopher has always so explained his
predecessors--often unintentionally--that it seemed as though they had
not in the least been understood before him.

As a transitory condition skepticism is logical insurrection; as a
system it is anarchy; skeptical method would thus be approximately
like insurgent government.

At the phrases "his philosophy," "my philosophy," we always recall the
words in Nathan the Wise: "Who owns God? What sort of a God is that
who is owned by a man?"

What happens in poetry happens never or always; otherwise, it is no
true poetry. We ought not to believe that it is now actually
happening.

Women have absolutely no sense of art, though they may have of poetry.
They have no natural disposition for the sciences, though they may
have for philosophy. They are by no means wanting in power of
speculation and intuitive perception of the infinite; they lack only
power of abstraction, which is far more easy to be learned.

That is beautiful which is charming and sublime at the same time.

Romantic poetry is a progressive universal poetry. Its mission is not
merely to reunite all the separate categories of poetry, and to bring
poetry into contact with philosophy and with rhetoric. It will, and
should, also now mingle and now amalgamate poetry and prose, genius
and criticism, artistic poetry and natural poetry; make poetry living
and social, and life and society poetic; poetize wit; and fill and
saturate the forms of art with sterling material of every kind, and
inspire them with the vibrations