The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars.

Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself.

Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.

Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.