“The test of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the other person talking as one reads, it is a good letter.”

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.

Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another.

The worst sorrows in life are not in its losses and misfortunes, but its fears.

It seems sometimes as if one were powerless to do any more from within to overcome troubles, and that help must come from without.

The moment that any life, however good, stifles you, you may be sure it isn’t your real life.

Congenial labor is the secret of happiness.

A diary need not be a dreary chronicle of one’s movements; it should aim rather at giving salient account of some particular episode, a walk, a book, a conversation.

I have known some quite good people who were unhappy, but never an interested person who was unhappy.

I think I feel rather differently about sympathy to what seems the normal view. I like just to feel it is there, but not always expressed.

I vow that I do not hold that complete and instantaneous love for the freedom of the press that one accords to things whose nature is unqualifiedly good. I love it out of consideration for the evils it prevents much more than for the good it does.

To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.

I wasn’t very good in academics, but I could have been if I could have studied well. I was a smart kid.

When I went to college, as much as my parents emphasized academic achievement, they emphasized marriage even more. They told me that the most eligible women marry young to get a ‘good man’ before they are all taken.

All the girls look good in college; I mean they’re young, they’re ready, they’re single, they just wanna have fun.

I avoid looking back. I prefer good memories to regrets.

Find the good. It’s all around you. Find it, showcase it and you’ll start believing in it.

Good times are always mutual; that is what makes good times.