Dyspepsy is the ruin of most things: empires, expeditions, and everything else. - Thomas De Quincey

Infirmity and misery do not of necessity imply guilt.

It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety.

at no time in my life have I been a person to hold myself polluted by the touch or approach of any creature that wore a human shape: on the contrary, from my very earliest youth it has been my pride to converse familiarly, more Socratico, with all human beings, man, woman, and child, that chance might fling my way; a practice …. which becomes a man who would be a philosopher.