The Christian religion, outwardly and even in intention humble, does, without meaning it, teach man to regard himself as the most important of all created things. Man surveys the starry heavens and hears with his ears of the plurality of worlds; yet his religion bids him believe that his alone out of these innumerable spheres is the object of his master's love and sacrifice.

When passion and habit long lie in company it is only slowly and with incredulity that habit awakens to finds its companion fled, itself alone.

A great love is an absolute isolation and an absolute absorption.

nothing is so pleasant ... as to display your worldly wisdom in epigram and dissertation, but it is a trifle tedious to hear another person display theirs.

A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run.

Sport inevitably creates deadness of feeling. No one could take pleasure in it who was sensitive to suffering; and therefore its pursuit by women is much more to be regretted than its pursuit by men, because women pursue much more violently and recklessly what they pursue at all.

What is failure except feebleness? And what is it to miss one's mark except to aim widely and weakly?