Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.

I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his Author's hands; be pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.

So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,--both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT--as his RESISTANCE.

Religion which lays so many restraints upon us, is a troublesome companion to those who will lay no restraints upon themselves.

I am persuaded ... that both man and woman bear pain or sorrow, (and, for aught I know, pleasure too) best in a horizontal position.

...beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest.

Digressions incontestably are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading.