Those persons are happiest in this restless and mutable world who are in love with change, who delight in what is new simply because it differs from what is old; who rejoice in every innovation, and find a strange alert pleasure in all that is, and that has never been before.

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.

The least practical of us have some petty thrift dear to our hearts, some one direction in which we love to scrimp.

The carefully fostered theory that schoolwork can be made easy and enjoyable breaks down as soon as anything, however trivial, has to be learned.

If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side.

Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.

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