The burden of the incommunicable.

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

But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety.

The science of style as an organ of thought, of style in relation to the ideas and feelings, might be called the organology of style.

In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.