“Congenial labor is the secret of happiness.”

I believe in instinct, not reason. When reason is right, nine times out of ten it is impotent, and when it prevails, nine times out of ten it is wrong.

People who deal with life generously and large-heartedly go on multiplying relationships to the end.

The friend is the person whom one is in need of and by whom one is needed.

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality – the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

I never enter a new company without the hope that I may discover a friend, perhaps the friend, sitting there with an expectant smile. That hope survives a thousand disappointments.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way.

Keeping up appearances is the most expensive thing in the world.

Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.

I don’t like authority, at least I don’t like other people’s authority.

It is often wonderful how putting down on paper a clear statement of a case helps one to see, not perhaps the way out, but the way in.

A well begun is half ended.

I expect that all of us get pretty much what we deserve of appreciation.

Do you know the times when one seems to stick fast in circumstances like the fly in the jam-pot? It can’t be helped, and I suppose the best thing to do is to lay in a good store of jam!

The joy of all mysteries is the certainty which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for the soul to open on her upward and inward way.

I am sure it is one’s duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one’s own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.

If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.

Rest, nature, books, music – such is my idea of happiness.

When your happiness is someone else’s happiness, that is love.

I’m happy to be alive, I’m happy to be who I am.

The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Happy is the man who has learned the causes of things.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

The culmination of many years of dedication, hard work and professionalism and that makes me very happy.