For how imperiously, how coolly, in disregard of all one’s feelings, does the hard, cold, uninteresting course of daily realities move on! Still we must eat, and drink, and sleep, and wake again, - still bargain, buy, sell, ask and answer questions, - pursue, in short, a thousand shadows, though all interest in them be over; the cold, mechanical habit of living remaining, after all vital interest in it has fled.

I b'lieve in religion, and one of these days, when I've got matters tight and snug, I calculates to tend to my soul.

The greater the interest involved in a truth the more careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry.

he who has nothing to lose can afford all risks.

The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock-flowers need rocks to grow on, or the ivy the rugged wall which it embraces.

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.