For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books."

There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.

"Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius's crater for an ink stand. . . . To produce a mighty book you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on a flea, though many there be that have tried it."

"If I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably --why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work --for am I not now at peace? Is not my supper good?"

An utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.