It might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts...
They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.
I had neglected to provide myself with books, and as we crept along at the dull rate of four miles per hour, I soon felt the foul fiend Ennui coming upon me.
On Andrew Jackson: “His native strength compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him a sharper tool.
The public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying common justice when too strenuously demanded as a right; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity.
Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?
Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.
We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow.
Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me.
To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.
Moonlight is sculpture.