If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
Thomas de QuinceyIt is one of the misfortunes in life that one must read thousands of books only to discover that one need not have read them.
Thomas de QuinceyAll 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.
Thomas de QuinceyFar better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.
Thomas de Quincey