I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers.

I love you not as something private and personal, which is my own, but as something universal and worthy of love which I have found.

A fact may blossom into a truth.

What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.

Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.