People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.

I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it - between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so far the advantage over learning; for it can make an appeal to you from what you know; but you cannot re-act upon it through that which it is a perfect stranger to. Ignorance is, therefore, power.

A hypocrite despises those whom he deceives, but has no respect for himself. He would make a dupe of himself too, if he could.

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.

The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying it with any ideas.

Everything is in motion. Everything flows. Everything is vibrating.