“Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.”

“In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.”

“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. ”

“All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.”

“The memory of that first state of Freedom and paradisiac Unconsciousness has faded away into an ideal poetic dream. We stand here too conscious of many things: with Knowledge, the symptom of Derangement, we must even do our best to restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, and at rare intervals, the diapason of a heavenly melody; oftenest the fierce jar of disruptions and convulsions, which, do what we will, there is no disregarding.”

“Literature is the thought of thinking souls.”

“The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.”