As there is no pleasure in military life for a soldier who fears death, so there is no independence in civil existence for the man who has an overpowering dread of solitude.

Woe unto him that is never alone, and cannot bear to be alone.

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.

The one mistake which is committed habitually by people who have the gift of half-genius, is waiting for inspiration.

I wonder how it is that so cheerful-looking a tree as the willow should ever have become associated with ideas of sadness.

Few of us have been so exceptionally unfortunate as not to find, in our own age, some experienced friend who has helped us by precious counsel, never to be forgotten. We cannot render it in kind, but perhaps in the fulness of time it may become our noblest duty to aid another as we have ourselves been aided, and to transmit to him an invaluable treasure, the tradition of the intellectual life.

Society will be obeyed; if you refuse obedience, you must take the consequences. Society has only one law, and that is custom. Even religion itself is socially powerful only just so far as it has custom on its side.