“What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind – the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship.”

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

I love not to be choked with other men’s thoughts.

What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same mind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.

Of new acquaintances one can never be sure because one likes them one day that it will be so the next. Of old friends one is sure that it will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

One can say everything best over a meal.

And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.

Character is not cut in marble – it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.

Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.

Never ‘did Science seem so vast and mere creeds so little’.