The moment our discourse ...

The moment our discourse rises above the ground-line of familiar facts, and is inflamed with passion or exalted thought, it clothes itself in images. A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that always a material image, more or less luminous, arises in his mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought.... This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation.
The moment our discourse rises above the ground-line of familiar facts, and is inflamed with passion or exalted thought, it clothes itself in images. A man conversing in earnest, if he watch his intellectual processes, will find that always a material image, more or less luminous, arises in his mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the vestment of the thought.... This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation.

Quotes from the same author

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Our distrust is very expensive.
Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.