We are overhasty to speak as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours.

Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity.

Genius is the capacity for receiving and improving by discipline.

It is well known to all experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.

In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past—sensations which assert themselves against tyrannous memories.

Things are achieved when they are well begun.

... as usual I am suffering much from doubt as to the worth of what I am doing and fear lest I may not be able to complete it so as to make it a contribution to literature and not a mere addition to the heap of books.