Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.

Toil to some is happiness, and rest to others. This man can only breathe in crowds, and that man only in solitudes.

Fame confers a rank above that of gentleman and of kings. As soon as she issues her patent of nobility, it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a Bourbon or of a tallow-chandler.

Westward, beyond the still pleasant, but, even then, no longer solitary, hamlet of Charing, a broad space, broken here and there by scattered houses and venerable pollards, in the early spring of 1467, presented the rural scene for the sports and pastimes of the inhabitants of Westminister and London.

Fate is not the ruler, but the servant of Providence.

The heart of a girl is like a convent--the holier the cloister, the more charitable the door.

A man's ancestry is a positive property to him.