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Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Mark Twain

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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Original Citation

Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. London: Chatto & Windus, 1884, notice.

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Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, edited by R. Kent Rasmussen. Penguin Classics, 2014, notice.

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At every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

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Original Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. De La Democratie en Amerique [Democracy in America]. Vol. 2, London: Saunders and Otley, 1840, sect. 1, ch. 5.

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Current Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II, translated by Henry Reeve. Bantam Classics, 2000, vol. 2, sect. 1, ch. 5.

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She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.

Toni Morrison

Beloved

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Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

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Isn't it pretty to think so?

Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

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Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926, bk. 3, ch. 19.

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Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride over all obstacles, and win the race!

Charles Dickens

The Personal History of David Copperfield

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Original Citation

Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield. London: Bradbury & Evans, Feb. 1850, issue 10, ch. 28.

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Current Citation

Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield, edited by Jeremy Tambling. Penguin Classics, 2004, ch. 28.

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Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold.

Mark Twain

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Original Citation

Twain, Mark, [published anonymously]. What is Man? De Vinne Press, 1906.

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Twain, Mark. "What is Man?" What Is Man? and Other Essays. Dover Publications, 2019.

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The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.

William Blake

The Everlasting Gospel

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Blake, William. The Everlasting Gospel. c. 1818.

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Current Citation

Blake, William. "The Everlasting Gospel." Blake: Poems, edited by Peter Washington. Everyman's Library, 1994.

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To fill the hour—that is happiness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: Second Series (Emerson)

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Experience." Essays: Second Series. Boston: James Munroe and Company, 1844.

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Experience (1844)." The Portable Emerson, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. Penguin Classics, 2014.

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For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture.

Cicero

On Duties

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Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Officiis [On Obligations]. c. 44 BC, bk. 1, ch. 42, sect. 151.

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Cicero, Marcus Tullius. On Obligations, translated by P. G. Walsh. Oxford University Press, 2008, bk. 1, ch. 42, sect. 151.

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I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Sorrows of Young Werther

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Original Citation

Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers [The Sorrows of Young Werther]. Leipzig: Weygand'sche Buchhandlung, 1774.

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Von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. "The Sorrows of Young Werther." The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings, translated by Catherin Hutter. Signet, 2013.

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No athlete is crowned but in the sweat of his brow.

St. Jerome

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Saint Jerome. Letter to Heliodorus. c. 374.

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Saint Jerome. The Letters of Saint Jerome. Aeterna Press, 2016.

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For so work the honeybees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home,
Others like merchants venture trade abroad,
Others like soldiers armèd in their stings
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent royal of their emperor,
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold.

William Shakespeare

Henry V

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Shakespeare, William. Henry V. The Lord Chamberlain's Men, c. 1599, The Curtain, Shoreditch, London, England, UK, act 1, sc. 2.

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Current Citation

Shakespeare, William. "Henry the Fifth." The Norton Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, et al., 3rd ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, act 1, sc. 2.

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The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.

Blaise Pascal

Pensées

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Original Citation

Pascal, Blaise. Pensées [Thoughts]. Paris: Chez G. Desprez, 1670, no. 267.

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Current Citation

Pascal, Blaise. "Pensées." Pensées and Other Writings, edited by Anthony Levi, translated by Honor Levi. Oxford University Press, 2008, no. 267.

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Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.

Lord Byron

Don Juan

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Original Citation

Lord Byron. Don Juan. London: John Murray, 1819, canto 2, st. 178.

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Lord Byron. "Don Juan." Lord Byron: The Major Works, edited by Jerome J. McGann. Oxford University Press, 2008, canto 2, st. 178.

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Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.

Edward Gibbon

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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Original Citation

Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Vol. 3, London: Strahan & Cadell, 1781, ch. 49.

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Current Citation

Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volumes 1-6. Vol. 3. Everyman's Library, 2010, ch. 49.

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Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education.

Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography

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Original Citation

Brontë, Charlotte, [published as Currer Bell]. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Vol. 3, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1847, ch. 29.

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Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics, 2006, ch. 29.

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Good prose is like a windowpane.

George Orwell

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Orwell, George. "Why I Write." Gongrel, No. 4, Summer 1946.

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Orwell, George. "Why I Write." Selected Essays, edited by Stefan Collini. Oxford University Press, 2021.

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Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

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Original Citation

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere." Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems. London: J. & A. Arch, 1798, pt. 2.

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Current Citation

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Major Works, edited by H. J. Jackson. Oxford University Press, 2009, pt. 2.

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