I am primarily engaged to myself to be a public servant of all the gods, to demonstrate to all men that there is intelligence andgood will at the heart of all things, and even higher and yet higher leadings. These are my engagements; how can your law further or hinder me in what I shall do to men?
I believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, and the Islands, - the Genius and creative Principle of each and of all eras, in my own mind.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew: The conscious stone to beauty grew.
The highest praise we can attribute to any writer, painter, sculptor, builder, is, that he actually possessed the thought or feeling with which he has inspired us.
Let ideas establish their legitimate sway again in society, let life be fair and poetic, and the scholars will gladly be lovers, citizens, and philanthropists.
Each man too is a tyrant in tendency, because he would impose his idea on others; and their trick is their natural defence. Jesuswould absorb the race; but Tom Paine or the coarsest blasphemer helps humanity by resisting this exuberance of power.
I do not know what arguments mean in reference to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men.
Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous expression with good humored inflexibility whether the whole cry of voices is on the other side.
But it is impossible that the creative power should exclude itself. Into every intelligence there is a door which is never closed,through which the creator passes.