“It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe.”

Who is it that loves me and will love me forever with an affection which no chance, no misery, no crime of mine can do away? It is you, my mother.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

Teach a parrot the terms ‘supply and demand’ and you’ve got an economist.

Love is not altogether a Delirium, says he elsewhere; “yet has it many points in common therewith.”

Democracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.

A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth.

Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.

The past is always attractive because it is drained of fear.

There is precious instruction to be got by finding we were wrong.

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

Once the mind has been expanded by a big idea, it will never go back to its original state.

Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines the kind of men we are.

As to the kind of truth one finds in books, it is a truth that enables us sometimes to discern what things are not, without ever enabling us to discover what they are.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.

Used to all kinds of society, she watched people as one reads the pages of a novel, with a certain disinterested amusement.

It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.

We are, all four of us, blood relatives, and we speak a kind of esoteric, family language, a sort of semantic geometry in which the shortest distance between any two points is a fullish circle.

An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.