“To live is like to love--all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it”

“Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule.”

“It stands to reason that he who would cure a moral ailment must be practically acquainted with it in all its bearings.”

“For society indeed of all sorts, except of course that of a few intimate friends, he had an unconquerable aversion. "I always did hate those people," he said, "and they always have hated and always will hate me. I am an Ihsmael by instinct as much as by accident of circumstances, but if I keep out of society I shall be less vulnerable than Ishmaels generally are. The moment a man goes into society, he becomes vulnerable all round.”

“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income”

“I know not why, but all the noblest arts hold in perfection but for a very little moment. They soon reach a height from which they begin to decline, and when they have begun to decline it is a pity that they cannot be knocked on the head; for an art is like a living organism—better dead than dying.”

“Property, marriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to the instinct; and woe to him who tampers with the banks while the flood is flowing.”