The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

Innovations to which we are not committed are illuminating things.

Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.

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 pessimist is seldom an agitating individual. His creed breeds indifference to others, and he does not trouble himself to thrust his views upon the unconvinced.

Miserliness is the one vice that grows stronger with increasing years. It yields its sordid pleasures to the end.

For indeed all that we think so new to-day has been acted over and over again, a shifting comedy, by the women of every century.