“It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.”

A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever and generally stopping before it gets there.

The choice of a topic which will bear analysis and support enthusiasm, is essential to the enjoyment of conversation.

What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!

There is a natural limit to the success we wish our friends, even when we have spurred them on their way.

Lovers of the town have been content, for the most part, to say they loved it. They do not brag about its uplifting qualities. They have none of the infernal smugness which makes the lover of the country insupportable.

The age of credulity is every age the world has ever known. Men have always turned from the ascertained, which is limited and discouraging, to the dubious, which is unlimited and full of hope for everybody.

What strange impulse is it which induces otherwise truthful people to say they like music when they do not, and thus expose themselves to hours of boredom?

Every true American likes to think in terms of thousands and millions. The word ‘million’ is probably the most pleasure-giving vocable in the language.

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.

The well-ordered mind knows the value, no less than the charm, of reticence. The fruit of the tree of knowledge … falls ripe from its stem; but those who have eaten with sobriety find no need to discuss the processes of digestion.

Woman is quick to revere genius, but in her secret soul she seldom loves it.

The friendships of nations, built on common interests, cannot survive the mutability of those interests.

It is because of our unassailable enthusiasm, our profound reverence for education, that we habitually demand of it the impossible. The teacher is expected to perform a choice and varied series of miracles.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

whereas the dog strives to lessen the distance between himself and man, seeks ever to be intelligent and intelligible, and translates into looks and actions the words he cannot speak, the cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.

The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.

Depression is the inability to construct a future.

I’ve learned that something constructive comes from every defeat.

Pattern-finding is the purpose of the mind and the construct of the universe.

Construct well being or produce illness in your self.

Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome: these are magnificently beautiful constructs.

There’s nothing wrong with anger provided you use it constructively.