The most intense curiosity and excitement prevailed, and though the weather was uncertain, enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them.

I have been out again on the river, rowing. I find nothing new.

...I cannot help being astonished at the furious and ungoverned execration which all reference to the possibility of a fusion of the races draws down upon those who suggest it, because nobody pretends to deny that, throughout the South, a large proportion of the population is the offspring of white men and colored women.

I want to do everything in the world that can be done.

Rome ... seems to me the place in the world where one can best dispense with happiness.

The drama is the looking-glass in which we see the hideousness of vice and the beauties of virtue.

They frequently find the truth who do not seek it, they who do, frequently lose it.