“She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Adversity is the first path to truth.

The great object of life is Sensation – to feel that we exist – even though in pain – it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming – to battle – to travel – to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

The heart will break, but broken live on.

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.

The drying up a single tear has more, of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.

Come what may, I have been blest.

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.

The first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism.

The tiger will himself intervene in the discussion, in a manner which will be in every sense conclusive.

The devil was the first democrat

Of religion I know nothing — at least, in its favor.

This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.