“Every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.”

“Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.”

“If we will not be mar-plots with our miserable interferences, the work, the society, letters, arts, science, religion of men would go on far better than now, and the heaven predicted from the beginning of the world, and still predicted from the bottom of the heart, would organize itself, as do now the rose, and the air, and the sun.”

“My life is not an apology, but a life. It is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.”

“Not the sun or summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight.”

“Every man's Reason is sufficient for his guidance, if used.”

“Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.”