"To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship"

"The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity."

"The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty."

"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman."

"Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both."

"To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed."

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

"No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring."

"There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are"

"I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse."

"He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions."

"Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements."

"Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic"

"In the morning it was morning and I was still alive."

"Each man's hell is in a different place: mine is just up and behind my ruined face."

"Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their lives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so."

"Dogs and angels are not very far apart"

"We are like roses that have never bothered to bloom when we should have bloomed and it is as if the sun has become disgusted with waiting"

"Fruit free of any bruises, not yet broken open, / With flesh so firm and smooth, it cried out to be eaten!"

"It's the devil who pulls the strings that make us dance"

"My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it."

"It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned."

"Something that is yours forever is never precious"

"It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice."