The world was to me a secret which I desired to devine.

I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.

I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.

. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

From my birth I have aspired like the eagle - but unlike the eagle, my wings have failed. . . . Congratulate me then that I have found a fitting scope for my powers.