The Church is a system, - but whether it is as much founded on the teaching of our Lord, who was divine, as on the teaching of St. Paul, who was not divine, is a question to me of much perplexity.

What a fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking that by his laughter he shows superiority instead of latent idiocy.

I attribute my good fortune to the simple fact that I have always tried to write straight from my own heart to the hearts of others.

A criminal is twice a criminal when he adds hypocrisy to his crime.

Imagination is the supreme endowment of the poet and romanticist. It is a kind of second sight, which conveys the owner of it to places he has never seen, and surrounds him with strange circumstances of which he is merely the spiritual eyewitness.

Fame, or notoriety, whichever that special noise may be called when the world like a hound 'gives tongue' and announces that the quarry in some form of genius is at bay, is apt to increase its clamor in proportion to the aloofness of the pursued animal.

A fine morning's killing, ay! All their necks wrung - all dead birds! Once they could fly - fly and swim! Fly and swim! All dead now - and sold cheap in the open market!