“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.”

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.

When you get to my age life seems little more than one long march to and from the lavatory.

As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.

One’s mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do.

Any woman can look her best if she feels good in her skin. It’s not a question of clothes or makeup. It’s how she sparkles.

I still like me, inside and out. Not in a vain way – I just feel good in my skin.

If you find it impossible to pray, hide behind your good Angel and charge him to pray in your stead.

Truth is sought not because it is truth but because it is good.

The secret of the law of abundance is this: In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give.

Any mind that is capable of real sorrow is capable of good.

To be good to the vile is to throw water into the sea.

Nobody is a good judge in his own cause!