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

The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

To treat of human actions is to deal wholly with second causes.

Nothing can lift the heart of man like manhood in a fellow man.

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 am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas.

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.