“For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.”

Meditation and water are wedded for ever.

The eyes are the gateway to the soul.

Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.

All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter’s ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of age.

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.

I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.

Art is the objectification of feeling.

You know nothing till you know all; which is the reason we never know any thing.

Nature is nobody’s ally.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.

I am, as I am; whether hideous, or handsome, depends upon who is made judge.

Sooner and later you will see great changes made, dreadful horrors and vengeances. For as the Moon is thus led by its angel, the heavens draw near to the Balance.

The masses need something that will give them a thrill of horror.

What pen can describe this scene of marvellous horror; what pencil can portray it?

It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite intolerable loathing and disgust.

You’re an ocean that I can’t navigate. If storms wrack your surface, I dread to think what horrors lie in your depths.

You have come to a stage where you almost have to work on yourself. You know, on finding some tranquility with which to respond to these things, because I realize that the biggest risk that many of us run is beginning to get inured to the horrors.

The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.

It is the certainty of being punished and not the horrifying spectacle of public punishment that must discourage crime.