Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

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

The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.

I came hither [Craigenputtoch] solely with the design to simplify my way of life and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself.

Wise man was he who counselled that speculation should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.

Man makes circumstances, and spiritually as well as economically, is the artificer of his own fortune.

Poverty, we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made barriers, which if they do mournfully gall and hamper, do at least prescribe for him, and force on him, a sort of course and goal; a safe and beaten, though a circuitous, course. A great part of his guidance is secure against fatal error, is withdrawn from his control. The rich, again, has his whole life to guide, without goal or barrier, save of his own choosing, and, tempted, is too likely to guide it ill.