“Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please, the more because they preach in vain”

Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tries, the Bores and Bored.

We are all the fools of time and terror: Days Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

America is a model of force and freedom and moderation – with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand;

The busy have no time for tears.

Socrates said, our only knowledge was “To know that nothing could be known;” a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.

Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss.

Hatred is the madness of the heart.

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface of the world all things are weighed by the false scale of custom.

The poor dog, in life the firmest friend. The first to welcome, foremost to defend.

The art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest and the stupidest of pretended sports.

There is no instinct like that of the heart.

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature’s profligate generosity.