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.

No man pursues what he has at hand. No man recognizes the need of pursuit until that which he desires has escaped him.

An appreciation of words is so rare that everybody naturally thinks he possesses it, and this universal sentiment results in the misuse of a material whose beauty enriches the loving student beyond the dreams of avarice.

Life is so full of miseries, minor and major; they press so close upon us at every step of the way, that it is hardly worthwhile to call one another's attention to their presence.

real letter-writing ... is founded on a need as old and as young as humanity itself, the need that one human being has of another.

We are tethered to our kind, and may as well join hands in the struggle.

Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.