To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

The castle crag of Drachenfels / Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine.

Still must I hear? – shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl / His creaking couplets in a tavern hall, / And I not sing?

In solitude, where we are least alone.

The simple Wordsworth . . . / Who, both by precept and example, shows / That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose.

Passion is the element in which we live; without it, we hardly vegetate.

Lovers may be — and indeed generally are — enemies, but they never can be friends, because there must always be a spice of jealousy and a something of Self in all their speculations.

Prolonged endurance tames the bold.

Where there is mystery, it is generally suspected there must also be evil.

May none these marks efface! / For they appeal from tyranny to God.

It has been said that the immortality of the soul is a ”grand peut-”tre” –but still it is a grand one. Everybody clings to it –the stupidest, and dullest, and wickedest of human bipeds is...

Talent may be in time forgiven, but genius never

No ear can hear nor tongue can tell the tortures of the inward hell!

The Angels were all singing out of tune, and hoarse with having little else to do, excepting to wind up the sun and moon or curb a runaway young star or two.

I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.

Think not I am what I appear.

He possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence; courage without ferocity; and all the virtues of man without his vices

I want a hero: an uncommon want, When every year and month sends forth a new one, Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such...

Maidens like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair

O gold! I still prefer thee unto paper which makes bank credit like a bank of vapor

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, ‘I told you so

Even I / Regained my freedom with a sigh.

I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

The great object of life is sensation-to feel that we exist, even in pain.

Let simple Wordsworth chime his childish verse, / And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse.

I have had, and may have still, a thousand friends, as they are called, in life, who are like one’s partners in the waltz of this world –not much remembered when the ball is over.

But as to women, who can penetrate the real sufferings of their she condition? Man’s very sympathy with their estate has much of selfishness and more suspicion. Their love, their virtue, beauty, education, but form...

There is no instinct like that of the heart.

And having wisdom with each studious year, in meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, and shaped his weapon with an edge severe, sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.

Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity.

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

The spirit burning but unbent, / May writhe, rebel – the weak alone repent!

Who tracks the steps of glory to the grave?

To feel for none is the true social art of the world’s stoics – men without a heart

The place is very well and quiet and the children only scream in a low voice.

For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast. And the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest.

A mind at peace with all below, / A heart whose love is innocent!

Like music on the waters is they sweet voice to me.

The power of Thought, the magic of the Mind!

Proud of his learning (just enough to quote), He revell’d in his Ciceronian glory: With memory excellent to get by rote, With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story, Graced with some merit,...

Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection

Out of chaos God made a world, and out of high passions comes a people.

In short, he was a perfect cavalier, / And to his very valet seemed a hero.

What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.

That all-softening, overpowering knell, / The tocsin of the soul – the dinner-bell.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.

Alas! The love of women! it is known to be a lovely and fearful thing!

Every sense hath been o’erstrung, and each frail fibre of the brain sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide