I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.

Most people are so constituted that they can only be virtuous in a certain routine; an irregular course of life demoralizes them.

It is a good lesson - though it may often be a hard one - for a man... to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.

One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to generation until the colors fade and blacken out of sight or the canvas rot entirely away.

As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest.

There is something truer and more real, than what we can see with the eyes, and touch with the finger.

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!