The trumpet does not more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility.

All people have their blind side-their superstitions.

He [the schoolmaster] is awkward, and out of place, in the society of his equals. Fie comes like Gulliver from among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his understanding to yours.

We do not go to the theatre, like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it.

You may derive thoughts from others; your way of thinking, the mould in which your thoughts are cast, must be your own.

For thy sake, tobacco, I Would do anything but die.

This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose shall be realized.

Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less.

Who first invented work and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down?

Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal.