“The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.”

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

They who go Feel not the pain of parting; it is they Who stay behind that suffer.

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.

Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.

The rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished gain.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Something attempted, something done, Has earned a nights repose.

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

The nearer the dawn the darker the night.

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.

But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?