The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
That was the first sound in the song of love!
Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound.
Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
And play the prelude of our fate. We hear
The voice prophetic, and are not alone.
Among the noblest in the land - Though man may count himself the least - That man I honor and revere, Who without favor, without fear, In the great city dares to stand, The friend of every friendless beast.
Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays To cover up the embers that still burn.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain, And not neglected; for a hand unseen, Scattering its bounty like a summer rain, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green.
The shadows of the mind are like those of the body. In the morning of life they all lie behind us; at noon we trample them under foot; and in the evening they stretch long, broad, and deepening before us.
As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.