“When the passage “All men are born free and equal,” when that passage was being written were not some of the signers legalised owners of slaves?”

A smile is the chosen vehicle of all ambiguities.

I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.

Tis no dishonor when he who would dishonor you, only dishonors himself.

Man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

A man of true science… thinks, that by mouthing hard words, he proves that he understands hard things.

Thou hast evoked in me profounder spells than the evoking one, thou face! For me, thou hast uncovered one infinite, dumb, beseeching countenance of mystery, underlying all the surfaces of visible time and space.

Do not presume, well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed, to criticize the poor

A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf – at any rate it is safer from criticism.

No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.

Failure is the true test of greatness

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?

Stay true to the dreams of thy youth.

There is one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.

As soon as we are born, we are old enough to die.

Trying to convince myself I am allowed to take up space is like writing with my left hand when I was born to use my right.

Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us.

Let it be known that I was born to be free.

If you don’t say what you think then you kill your unborn self.

If society is corrupt, but not the individuals within it, then where did the corruption originate? How is it propagated? It’s a one-sided, deeply ideological theory.

Modern-day love stories are born not out of love, but a tired mind and a restless heart.

I have not come into this world to make men better, but to make use of their weaknesses.