At the gates of the forest, the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish.

The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb.

My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeinga Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in their wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. ... All that interests in any character [is this]: has he (or she) the money to marry with? ... Suicide is more respectable.

A skilful man reads his dreams for his selfknowledge; yet not the details, but the quality.

We animate what we can see, and we see only what we animate.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.