The only ugliness is that of the heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is invisible.

The Past is the textbook of tyrants; the Future the Bible of the Free. Those who are solely governed by the Past stand like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and forever incapable of looking before.

Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling.

I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.