I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.

Propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.

Unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.

Die without me if you will. Live for me if you dare.

This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes the rise of day; that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter, and the prophecy of coming spring.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life - no true home - nothing to be dearer to me than myself?