Yesterday I visited the British Museum; an exceedingly tiresome affair. It quite crushes a person to see so much at once; and I wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart. The present is burdened too much with the past.

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

"Great men have to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole world, in order to conceive their great ideas, or perform their great deeds."

"The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and, lastly, the solid cash."

Life is made up of marble and mud.