Who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret?

Wit is as infinite as love, and a deal more lasting in its qualities.

There is no illusion so permanent as that which enables us to look backward with complacency; there is no mental process so deceptive as the comparing of recollections with realities.

We have but the memories of past good cheer, we have but the echoes of departed laughter. In vain we look and listen for the mirth that has died away. In vain we seek to question the gray ghosts of old-time revelers.

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

A world of vested interests is not a world which welcomes the disruptive force of candor.