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?

There are people who balk at small civilities on account of their manifest insincerity. ... It is better and more logical to accept all the polite phraseology which facilitates intercourse, and contributes to the sweetness of life. If we discarded the formal falsehoods which are the currency of conversation, we should not be one step nearer the vital things of truth.

It is claimed that the United States gets the cleanest and purest tea in the market, and certainly it is too good to warrant the nervous apprehension which strains and dilutes it into nothingness. The English do not strain their tea in the fervid fashion we do. They like to see a few leaves dawdling about the cup. They like to know what they are drinking.

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.

The clear-sighted do not rule the world, but they sustain and console it.

Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.