Marriage (in what is called the spiritual world) is impossible, because of the inequality between every subject and every object.

The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct.

What is indispensable to inspiration? ...sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion.

If any mention was made of homicide, madness, adultery, and intolerable tortures, we would let the church-bells ring louder, the church-organ swell its peal and drown the hideous sound. The sugar they raised was excellent: nobody tasted blood in it.

The borrower runs in his own debt.

Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.

The experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet