The habit of dwelling on the past, has a narrowing as well as a debilitating influence. Behind us, there is a small, - an almost insignificant measur….

I wrote because I could not help it. There was something that I wanted to say, and I said it: that was all. The fame and the money and the usefulness….

[On being deaf:] We can never get beyond the necessity of keeping in full view the worst and the best that can be made of our lot. The worst is, eith….

Who is apt, on occasion, to assign a multitude of reasons when one will do? This is a sure sign of weakness in argument..

Self-denial is taught much better by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is ….

[I] wish that the land-tax went a little more according to situation than it does. 'Tis really ridiculous, how one has to pay five times as much as a….

[On being deaf:] We must struggle for whatever may be had, without encroaching on the comfort of others..

Happiness consists in the full employment of our faculties in some pursuit..

Men who pass most comfortably through this world are those who possess good digestions and hard hearts..

Day-thoughts feed nightly dreams; And sorrow tracketh wrong, As echo follows song..

Scarcely anything that I observed in the United States caused me so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the people entertained by those who w….

I am sure that no traveler seeing things through author spectacles can see them as they are..

I romanced internally about early death till it was too late to die early..

I hope and believe my co-religionists understand and admit that I disclaim their theology in toto, and that by no twisting of language or darkening o….

The instruction furnished is not good enough for the youth of such a country ... There is not even any systematic instruction given on political mora….

Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as….

Religion is a temper, not a pursuit..

Women, like men, must be educated with a view to action, or their studies cannot be called education..

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class..

There is no theory of a God, of an author of Nature, of an origin of the Universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties. . ..

I loved, as I still love, the most monotonous life possible..