God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.

A man is a little thing whilst he works by and for himself, but, when he gives voice to the rules of love and justice, is godlike, his word is current in all countries; and all men, though his enemies, are made his friends and obey it as their own.

Keep the town for occasions, but the habits should be formed in retirement.

Nature encourages no looseness; pardons no errors.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

The exceptional life depends not on working harder, but on different, even opposite, actions from habit and the crowd.