Human life--that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.

God's eternal laws are kind-and break the heart of stone.

In going to America one learns that poverty is not a necessary accompaniment to civilization.

A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.

Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead?