Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption.

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

I lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house.

There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.

I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches.

How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual friends, that we might go and meet their ideal cousins.