Enough if every age produce two or three critics of this esoteric class, with here and there a reader to understand them.

Nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium: its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion.

Reserve is the truest expression of respect towards those who are its objects.

here 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.

I feel that there is no such thing as ultimate forgetting; traces once impressed upon the memory are indestructible.

All is finite in the present; and even that finite is infinite in it velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite...Upon a night of earthquake he builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an infant he raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious vintages that could not else have been.

Allow me to offer my congratulations on the truly admirable skill you have shown in keeping clear of the mark. Not to have hit once in so many trials, argues the most splendid talents for missing.