It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

In his very rejection of art Walt Whitman is an artist. He tried to produce a certain effect by certain means and he succeeded....He stands apart, and the chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As a man he is the precursor of a fresh type. He is a factor in the heroic and spiritual evolution of the human being. If Poetry has passed him by, Philosophy will take note of him.

Hard work is amply the refuge of those who have nothing to do.

Jack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations . . . I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.

Selfishness is not living your life as you wish to live it. Selfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you wish them to.

I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel.

People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.