It is a momentous fact that a man may be good, or he may be bad; his life may be true, or it may be false; it may be either a shame or a glory to him. The good man builds himself up; the bad man destroys himself.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

The doctors are all agreed that I am suffering for want of society. Was never a case like it. First, I did not know that I was suffering at all. Secondly, as an Irishman might say, I had thought it was indigestion of the society I got.

The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the decay of humanity; the fragrant flower that springs from it, for the purity and courage which are immortal.

We should impart our courage and not our despair.