Whilst you live a very little religion seems enough; but believe me, it requires a great deal when you come to die.

Did you ever see a giraffe? It is like something from between the regions of truth and fiction.

People always make mistakes when they fancy themselves exceptions.

I wish there were some photographic process by which one's mind could be struck off and transferred to that of the friend we wish to know it, without the medium of this confounded letter-writing!

Our wishes never seem so little desirable as when on the verge of accomplishment; we draw back instinctively, they look so different from what we expected.

society ... is tolerant of crimes, and long suffering with dullness, but it shows no mercy to those who are different from other people.

One's conscience reproaches one much more stingingly for one's follies than one's crimes.