I flutter all ways, and fly in none.

We must not inquire too curiously into motives. they are apt to become feeble in the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep the germinating grain away from the light.

Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature by general discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous self and an insignificant world may have its consolations. Lydgate's discontent was much harder to bear; it was the sense that there was a grand existence in thought and effective action lying around him, while his self was being narrowed into the miserable isolation of egoistic fears, and vulgar anxieties for events that might allay such fears.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

History repeats itself.

The moment of finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and exultation, as the moment of finding an idea.

There is so much to read and the days are so short! I get more hungry for knowledge every day, and less able to satisfy my hunger.