Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.

Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else, will succeed at last in deceiving themselves.

I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal.

As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.

After money in the bank, a grudge is the next best thing.

Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.

I have read - nay, I have bought! - Carlyle's 'Latter Day Pamphlets,' and look on my eight shillings as very much thrown away. To me it appears that the grain of sense is so smothered up in a sack of the sheerest trash, that the former is valueless....I look on him as a man who was always in danger of going mad in literature and who has now done so.