The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

He who rides and keeps the beaten track studies the fences chiefly.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

We can never safely exceed the actual facts in our narratives. Of pure invention, such as some suppose, there is no instance. To write a true work of fiction even is only to take leisure and liberty to describe some things more exactly as they are.

To the virtuous man, the universe is the only sanctum sanctorum, and the penetralia of the temple are the broad noon of his existence.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. [So why not suspect good rather than bad in events, people and life and thereby find it more?]