The mason asks but a narrow shelf to spring his brick from; man requires only an infinitely narrower one to spring his arch of faith from.

You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

As if there were safety in stupidity alone

My friend is one who takes me for what I am. A stranger takes me for something else than what I am. . . . What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm. It brings men together in crowds and mobs in bar-rooms and elsewhere, but it does not deserve the name of virtue.

When I think of the gold-diggers and the Mormons, the slaves and the slave-holders and the flibustiers, I naturally dream of a glorious private life. No, I am not patriotic.

Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.