Properly Speaking, All True Work Is Religion.

It Is Now Almost My Sole Rule Of Life To Clear Myself Of Cants And Formulas, As Of Poisonous Nessus Shirts.

Speech Is Great, But Silence Is Greater.

Oblivion Is The Dark Page, Whereon Memory Writes Her Light-beam Characters, And Makes Them Legible; Were It All Light, Nothing Could Be Read There, Any More Than If It Were All Darkness.

Imagination Is A Poor Matter When It Has To Part Company With Understanding.

Tobacco Smoke Is The One Element In Which, By Our European Manners, Men Can Sit Silent Together Without Embarrassment, And Where No Man Is Bound To Speak One Word More Than He Has Actually And Veritably Got To Say. Nay, Rather Every Man Is Admonished And Enjoined By The Laws Of Honor, And Even Of Personal Ease, To Stop Short Of That Point; And At All Events To Hold His Peace And Take To His Pipe Again The Instant He Has Spoken His Meaning, If He Chance To Have Any.