Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle, revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm.

If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false sentiment, I could never stay there five minutes.

Stay at home in your mind. Don't recite other people's opinions.

There are many faculties in man, each of which takes its turn of activity, and that faculty which is paramount in any period and exerts itself through the strongest nation, determines the civility of that age: and each age thinks its own the perfection of reason.

Dreams and beasts are two keys by which we find out the keys of our own nature.

A hero is a man who is afraid to run away.

It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect, it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances.