Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, and no force of character can make any stand against good wit. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

The poets made all the words and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses. For though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture. Language is fossil poetry.

There may be two or three or four steps, according to the genius of each, but for every seeing soul there are two absorbing facts, — I and the abyss.