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

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.

In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest; -- guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time.

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

No country can find eternal peace and comfort where the vote of Judas Iscariot is as good as the vote of the Saviour of mankind.

Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.