A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens.

I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.

There are as many and innumerable degrees of wit, as there are cubits between this and heaven.

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.