The memory of an absent person shines in the deepest recesses of the heart, shining the more brightly the more wholly its object has vanished: a light on the horizon of the despairing, darkened spirit; a star gleaming in our inward night.

Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.

It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, and vice the real murderer.

These are true felicities. No joy beyond these joys. Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps

O darkness, the sky is a gloomy precinct Whose door you close, and whose key the soul owns; And night divides itself in half, being diabolical and holy, Between Ilis, the black angel, and Christ, the starry Human Being.

Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.

Stupidity talks, vanity acts.