To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers.

A thought may be very commendable as a thought, but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on the thinker.

The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning—first fallen flake of the coming snows of age—is a disagreeable thing.... So are flying twinges of gout, shortness of breath on the hill-side, the fact that even the moderate use of your friend's wines at dinner upsets you. These things are disagreeable because they tell you that you are no longer young—that you have passed through youth, are now in middle age, and faring onward to the shadows in which, somewhere, a grave is hid.

Everything is sweetened by risk.

The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.

The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning - first fallen flake of the coming snows of age - is a disagreeable thing.