Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)

We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.

Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides.

It is the sternest philosophy, but on the whole the truest, that, in the wide arena of the world, failure and success are not accidents, as we so frequently suppose, but the strictest justice.

If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death.

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.

The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself.