fiefoe

Arrow-heads must be brought to a sharp point... Something intensely human, narrow, and definite pierces to the seat of our sensibilities more readily than huge occurrences and catastrophes.
Keep any line of knowledge ten years and some other line will intersect it.
Qu'est ce qu'il a fait? What has he done? That was Napoleon's test. What have you done?
(In the summer), one would like to imitate the mode of life of the native at Sierra Leone, as somebody has described it: stroll into the market in natural costume,--buy a watermelon for a halfpenny,--split it, and scoop out the middle,--sit down in one half of the empty rind, clap the other on one's head, and feast upon the pulp.
The great mystery of God's providence is the permitted crushing out of flowering instincts. Life is maintained by the respiration of oxygen and of sentiments.
"Is this the mighty ocean?--is this all?" says the Princess in Gebir.

quotes from "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table", part VI [.]