I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but the continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world.

To Hope "When by my solitary hearth I sit, And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom; When no fair dreams before my 'mind's eye' flit, And the bare heath of life presents no bloom; Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head.

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.

A man should have the fine point of his soul taken off to become fit for this world.

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.

Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine - how good how fine. It went down all pulpy, slushy, oozy, all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large, beatified Strawberry.