Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect. A man does not see, that, as he eats, so he thinks: as he deals, so he is, and so he appears; he does not see that his son is the son of his thoughts and of his actions; that fortunes are not exceptions but fruits; that relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always; no miscellany, no exemption, no anomaly,--but method, and an even web; and what comes out, that was put in.

The lover of letters loves power too.

Everything is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour if seen as experience.

And truly it demands something god like in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

I cannot go to the houses of my nearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists by chemical affinity, and not otherwise.

We are imprisoned in life in the company of persons powerfully unlike us.

How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his father's or mother's life?