The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.

The soul is not born; it does not die; it was not produced from anyone… Unborn, eternal, it is not slain, though the body is slain.

The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.

There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.

Every man is an impossibility until he is born.

We hear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an intellectual man. But in his presence our own mind is roused to activity, and we forget very fast what he says.