One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.

I hate all pain, Given or received; we have enough within us The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch, Not to add to each other's natural burden Of mortal misery.

Why I came here, I know not; where I shall go it is useless to inquire - in the midst of myriads of the living and the dead worlds, stars, systems, infinity, why should I be anxious about an atom?

I should be very willing to redress men wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, had not Cervantes, in that all too true tale of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

Retirement accords with the tone of my mind; I will not descend to a world I despise.

One certainly has a soul; but how it came to allow itself to be enclosed in a body is more than I can imagine.

The very best of vineyards is the cellar