There is hardly any mental misery worse than that of having our own serious phrases, our own rooted beliefs, caricatured by a charlatan or a hireling.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?

It is better - it shall be better with me because I have known you.

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.