“What is there that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man's breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery!”

“I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else... I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road.”

“All publishers are Columbuses. The successful author is their America. The reflection that they-like Columbus-didn't discover what they expected to discover, and didn't discover what they started out to discover, doesn't trouble them. All they remember is that they discovered America; they forget that they started out to discover some patch or corner of India.”

“Ah, if he could only die temporarily!”

“My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.”

“Every subject's duty is the Kings, but every subject's soul is his own.”

“We must every one be a man of his own fancy.”

“I am not in the roll of common men.”

“I that please some, try all, both joy and terrorOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error.”

“Weed your better judgments of all opinion that grows rank in them.”

“All hoods make not monks.”

“Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had rather lie in the woolen.”

“Age, I do abhor thee, youth, I do adore thee.”

“I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.”

“The patient must minister to himself”

“The masses have no habit of self-reliance or original action.”

“Let a stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear.”

“One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.”

“Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men teaches the art of omission and selection.”

“I am easily satisfied with the very best.”