“Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.”

“Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.”

“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.”

“All is a-swarm with commentaries; of authors there is a dearth.”

“It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again.”

“I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.”

“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.”