Insincerity in a man's own heart must make all his enjoyments, all that concerns him, unreal; so that his whole life must seem like a merely dramatic representation.

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream

What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in?

Keep the imagination sane--that is one of the truest conditions of communion with heaven.

The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of men.

It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view