Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.

There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.

We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.

Nature has not implanted any power in man that was not meant to be exercised at times, though too often our powers have been abused.

I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.

All deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea, while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.

Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. ... What I feel most moved to write, that is banned - it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches.