A man met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked. "I am weeping for my sins," said the lad. "You must have little to do," said the man. The next day, they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why do you weep now?" asked the man. "I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad. "I thought it would come to that," said the man.

When I say writing, O believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind.

Am I no a bonny fighter?

I have been made to learn that the doom and burden of our life is bound forever on man’s shoulders; and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.

I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements.

Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.

It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.