“Are we surprised if a sick man cannot walk, or keep awake, or stand upright? Would it not be more surprising if he was the same man as when he was well? If we have a headache, or have slept badly, we are excused for telling incapable of work, and yet no one suspects us of always being lazy. Shall we deny a dying man the privilege we grant a man with a headache? And dare we assert that the man who lacks courage in his last agony never possessed virtue when he was well.”

“When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him Vandal. When he wantonly destroys one of the works of God we call him Sportsman.”

“The Word takes to Himself one man, for He takes unity. He does not take schisms to Himself, nor does He take heresies. … So it is one man who is taken, and his Head is Christ. … This is that "blessed man who hath not walked in the council of the ungodly" (Ps. 1:1); this is he that is assumed. He is not outside of us. … Let us be in Him, and we shall be assumed; let us be in Him, and we shall be chosen. … Therefore this one man that is taken to become the temple of God, is at once many and one.”

“We are then able to answer in some manner the question, "Why have we no great men?" We have no great men chiefly because we are always looking for them. We are connoisseurs of greatness, and connoisseurs can never be great; we are fastidious, that is, we are small. When Diogenes went about with a lantern looking for an honest man, I am afraid he had very little time to be honest himself. And when anybody goes about on his hands and knees looking for a great man to worship, he is making sure that one man at any rate shall not be great.”

“Shall we relieve a man, that trusts when he needs not?”

“We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage.”

“We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.”

“When a man has become a great figure in society as a physician, we must not be surprised if he regards the laws of society as the laws of Nature — but we need not respect him for it.”

“[We learn] from this that we tell only part of a man's qualities in his presence, and all of them when he is not present.”

“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow as well as himself — and what is a man's shadow but his upright astonishment?”