a station which raises a man too eminently above the level of his fellow-creatures is not the most favourable to moral or to intellectual qualities - Thomas de Quincey

No terrors of impending vengeance, had they been a thousand time stronger than they were, could at this moment have availed to stifle the cry of triumphant pleasure -long, loud, and unfaltering- which indignant sympathy with the oppressed extorted from the crowd.

thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples.

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.