Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
There will always be some people who think for themselves, even among the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself.
To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.
[Perfection] is only possible if the mind of man is changed, if he, of his own sweet will, changes his mind; and the great difficulty is, neither can he force his own mind.
I find nothing in fables more astonishing than my experience in every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact so stupendous as to take the luster out of fiction.
Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part.
A writer is someone who has a one-man tent in the desert and occasionally he sees the footprint of an other writer - in the form of a review or something.
It never occurred to him to be spiritually won over to the enemy. Many moderns, inured to a weak worship of intellect and force, might have wavered in their allegiance under this oppression of a great personality. . . . But this was a kind of modern meanness to which Syme could not sink even in his extreme morbidity. Like any man, he was coward enough to fear great force; but he was not coward enough to admire it.