For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it.

It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

Convinced myself, I seek not to convince.

...If you do not take it up with you in some way, I shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this shovel

Stupidity is a talent for misconception.

I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness - the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.

Men of genius are far more abundant than is supposed. In fact, to appreciate thoroughly the work of what we call genius, is to possess all the genius by which the work was produced.