Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.

Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, with which all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite... Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarreling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: It is even, as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.

He that will not work according to his faculty, let him perish according to his necessity: there is no law juster than that.

For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer.

True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.

It is not a lucky word, this name impossible; no good comes of those who have it so often in their mouths.

Happy season of childhood! Kind Nature, that art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest the poor man's hut With auroral radiance; and for thy nursling hast provided a soft swathing of love and infinite hope wherein he waxes and slumbers, danced round by sweetest dreams!