All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

All parts of knowledge have their origin in metaphysics, and finally, perhaps, revolve into it.

The whole body of the arts and sciences composes one vast machinery for the irritation and development of the human intellect.

There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is--to teach; the function of the second is--to move, the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.

Far 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.

I 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.

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