As is the inventor of murder, and the father of art, Cain must have been a man of first-rate genius.
Thomas de QuinceyI stood checked for a moment - awe, not fear, fell upon me - and whist I stood, a solemn wind began to blow, the most mournful that ever ear heard. Mournful! That is saying nothing. It was a wind that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.
Thomas de QuinceyEither the human being must suffer and struggle as the price of a more searching vision, or his gaze must be shallow and without intellectual revelation.
Thomas de QuinceyThere is a necessity for a regulating discipline of exercise that, whilst evoking the human energies, will not suffer them to be wasted.
Thomas de Quinceyhere was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail.
Thomas de Quincey