In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents.

You who weep for pleasures fled, While dragging on a life of care, All your woes will melt in air, If to god your tears are shed, You who Weap!

So he went down, smiling sceptically and mutter the final word in human wisdom: 'Perhaps!

What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?" "Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.

...for, however all other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one bright smiling spot in the maternal breast, and that is where a dearly-beloved child is concerned.

In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless.