“Oh yes, right-right. What is the use of having right on your side if you have not got might?”

There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying in the knowledge that a husband or wife has forgiven the other freely, and from the heart.

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.

What ought a man be? Well, my short answer is ‘himself’.

When you’ve sold yourself once for the sake of others, you don’t do it second time.

Writing has… been to me like a bath from which I have risen feeling cleaner, healthier, and freer.

Different people have different duties assigned them by Nature; Nature has given one the power or the desire to do this, the other that. Each bird must sing with his own throat.

It’s a liberation to know that an act of spontaneous courage is yet possible in this world. An act that has something of unconditional beauty.

The spectacles of experience; through them you will see more clearly a second time.

Oh courage, oh yes! If only one had that. Then life might be livable, in spite of everything.

The sea possesses a power over one’s moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature in general can do so.

If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.

It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life

Don’t use that foreign word: ideals. We have the excellent native word: lies.

You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with.

The strongest men are the most alone.

Now I am steel-set: I follow the call to the clear radiance and glow of the heights.

If you would fall into any extreme, let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists rigor, and yields to softness.

Understand: A person of power instills a kind of fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initative on his side.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about women, which I try to pass on to my boys, it’s listening. Listen to the other side of the story first.

Fragments of the natural method must be sought with the greatest care. This is the first and last desideratum among botanists. Nature makes no jumps. All taxa show relationships on all sides like the countries on a map of the world.

You have to use fantasy to show different sides to reality. That’s how it can bend.

It’s a terrible thing to go through life thinking that you have a rock on your side when you haven’t.

That’s just a part of being an artist: you can’t write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you’d be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.

Allow your softest sides to show.