God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.

Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.

[O]ur honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.

Every joy that life gives must be earned ere it be secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who have wrestled for great prizes. The heart’s blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it.

The world, I soon learned, held a different estimate: and I make no doubt, the world is very right in its view, yet believe also that I am not quite wrong in mine.