No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.

All work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew.

Is there no God, then, but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe?

History is the new poetry.

Affectation is the product of falsehood.

Every human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!

It is now almost my sole rule of life to clear myself of cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus shirts.