“I speak the truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older.”

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”

“If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.”

“I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”

“I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own.”

“I do not think that there is so much wretchedness in us as vanity; we are not so much wicked as daft; we are not so much full of evil as of inanity; we are not so much pitiful as despicable.”

“If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, ‘Because it was he; because it was I.’ There is, beyond what I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and inevitable power that brought on this union.”