Memory itself is an internal rumour; and when to this hearsay within the mind we add the falsified echoes that reach us from others, we have but a shifting and unseizable basis to build upon. The picture we frame of the past changes continually and grows every day less similar to the original experience which it purports to describe.

The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate; they are green and vigorous in old age.

Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.

For a man who has done his natural duty, death is as natural as sleep.

I believe in the possibility of happiness, if one cultivates intuition and outlives the grosser passions, including optimism.

Manhood and sagacity ripen of themselves; it suffices not to repress or distort them.

I have no axe to grind; only my thoughts to burnish.