Man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes.

One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning.

The western spirit is, or will yet be (for no other is, or can be) the true American one.

An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.

The man's (a heathen south sea islander) a human being, just as I am; he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

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

It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.