It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I seek, the heaven above And the road below me.

Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.

The Devil, can sometimes do a very gentlemanly thing.

The seeming significance of nature's appearances, their unchanging strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling response which they awaken in the mind of man . . . If we could only write near enough to the facts, and yet with no pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer the glamour of reality direct upon our pages.

These are my politics: to change what we can; to better what we can; but still to bear in mind that man is but a devil weakly fettered by some generous beliefs and impositions; and for no word however sounding, and no cause however just and pious, to relax the stricture on these bonds.

To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.