I think that few people are aware how early it is right to respect the modesty of an infant.

I have suffered, like other writers, from indolence, irresolution, distaste to my work, absence of 'inspiration,' and all that: but I have also found that sitting down, however reluctantly, with the pen in my hand, I have never worked for one quarter of an hour without finding myself in full train.

While feeling far less injured by toil than my friends took for granted I must be, I yet was always aware of the strong probability that my life would end as the lives of hard literary workers usually end, - in paralysis, with months or years of imbecility.

Happiness consists in the full employment of our faculties in some pursuit.

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit.

[On being deaf:] We must struggle for whatever may be had, without encroaching on the comfort of others.

it is a testament to the strength and purity of the democratic sentiment in the country, that the republic has not been overthrown by its newspapers.