Men wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices.

[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely to truth itself.

Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing.

There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty.

People who wash much have a high mind about it, and talk down to those who wash little.

The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not.

Thus grows up fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the most fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which morals and violence assault in vain.