"The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!"

"All my books are botches."

"And there is a certain valor in not thinking too much about the future."

"I am a man who has experienced much, and learned little."

"But the soul is a sort of intensely black pearl, which, though glimmering sometimes with an awful resplendence, is yet oftenest incrusted with an unbearable scurf."