“Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!”

It is an awful thing to get a glimpse, as one sometimes does, when the time is past, of some little, little wheel which works the whole mighty machinery of fate, and see how our destinies turn on a minute’s delay or advance.

I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.

To be beautiful is enough! if a woman can do that well who should demand more from her? You don’t want a rose to sing.

Women are jealous of cigars, they regard them as a strong rival.

Then sing as Martin Luther sang, As Doctor Martin Luther sang, “Who loves not wine, woman and song, He is a fool his whole life long.”

Never marry with the expectation of changing a person.

A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess ’em.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word.

The best of women are hypocrites.

Out of the fictitious book I get the expression of the life, of the times, of the manners, of the merriment, of the dress, the pleasure, the laughter, the ridicules of society. The old times live again. Can the heaviest historian do more for me?

Those who forgets their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.

We can’t all be lions in this world. There must be some lambs, harmless, kindly, gregarious creatures for eating and shearing.

The world is good natured to people who are good natured.

Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!

When I cannot understand my Father’s leading, And it seems to be but hard and cruel fate, Still I hear that gentle whisper ever pleading, God is working, God is faithful-Only wait.

They… who await. No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.

Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.

I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.

The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.

Fate and temperament are the names of a concept.

Character and fate are two words for the same thing.

It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy.