I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

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

From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition.