Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is.

Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.

Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.

It is when their age of passions is past that great men produce their masterpieces, just as it is after volcanic eruptions that the soil is most fertile.

Too elevated qualities often unfit a man for society. We do not go to market with ingots, but with silver and small change.

What we love intensely or for a long time we are likely to bring within the citadel, and to assert as part of oneself.

Obscurity and Innocence, twin sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armor, in contact with the world.