Books that children read but once are of scant service to them; those that have really helped to warm our imaginations and to train our faculties are the few old friends we know so well that they have become a portion of our thinking selves.

The delusions of the past seem fond and foolish. The delusions of the present seem subtle and sane.

Traveling is, and has always been, more popular than the traveler.

The perfectly natural thing to do with an unreadable book is to give it away; and the publication, for more than a quarter of a century, of volumes which fulfilled this one purpose and no other is a pleasant proof, if proof were needed, of the business principles which underlay the enlightened activity of publishers.

Art... does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

Love is a malady, the common symptoms of which are the same in all patients.

I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts - facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.