I certainly had no idea how little faith Christians have in their own faith till I saw how ill their courage and temper can stand any attack on it.

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

if I believed that the choice lay between a sacrifice of the completest order of biography and that of the inviolability of private epistolary correspondence, I could not hesitate for a moment. I would keep the old and precious privacy,-the inestimable right of every one who has a friend and can write to him, - I would keep our written confidence from being made biographical material, as anxiously as I would keep our spoken conversation from being noted down for the good of society.

The clergy complain of the enormous spread of bold books, from the infidel tract to the latest handling of the miracle question.

Authorship has never been with me a matter of choice. I have not done it for amusement, or for money, or for fame, or for any reason but because I could not help it.

I romanced internally about early death till it was too late to die early.

The voice of a whole people goes up in the silent workings of an institution.