Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

Were a star quenched on high,For ages would its light,Still travelling downward from the sky,Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies,For years beyond our ken,The light he leaves behind him liesUpon the paths of men.

Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procreates turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

I am never indifferent, and never pretend to be, to what people say or think of my books. They are my children, and I like to have them liked.

A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thought's of youth are long, long thoughhts

I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart

In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause.