When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.

Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope.

I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.

The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.

Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?

The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.