Power is in nature the essential measure of right.

Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible, and divine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A door is to bepainted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood, or oil, or meal, or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax; and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains; and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,--these eat up the hours.

All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.

Commonsense is the wick of the candle.

The sign and credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no man foretold

Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.