...most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right.

But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile.

London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. No degree of affection need invade this religion.

The right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no constable to keep them.

Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!