The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.

I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.

It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run.

The next time the novelist rings the bell I will not stir though the meeting-house burn down.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour.

The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences.