There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.

We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.

I hate a man who swallows [his food], affecting not to know what he is eating. I suspect his taste in higher matters.

Science has succeeded to poetry, no less in the little walks of children than with men. Is there no possibility of averting this sore evil?

There is absolutely no such thing as reading but by a candle. We have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens, and in sultry arbours, but it was labor thrown away. Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering and teasing, like so many coquets, that will have you all to their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the midnight taper, the writers digests his meditations. By the same light we must approach to their perusal, if we would catch the flame, the odour.

When I am not walking, I am reading. I cannot sit and think.

We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision; to collect the scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, with firmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies.