“A woman being never at a loss... the devil always sticks by them.”

“If I could always read I should never feel the want of company.”

“I cannot conceive why people will always mix up my own character and opinions with those of the imaginary beings which, as a poet, I have the right and liberty to draw.”

“Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end; For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, Being Pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are. But Time, which brings all beings to their level, And sharp Adversity, will teach at last Man,—and, as we would hope,—perhaps the Devil, That neither of their intellects are vast: While Youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel, We know not this—the blood flows on too fast; But as the torrent widens towards the Ocean, We ponder deeply on each past emotion.”

“Let us have wine and woman, mirth and laughter,Sermons and soda water the day after.Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;The best of life is but intoxication:Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunkThe hopes of all men, and of every nation;Without their sap, how branchless were the trunkOf life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion:But to return--Get very drunk; and whenYou wake with head-ache, you shall see what then.”

“In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.”

“For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.”