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.

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.

To-day is always different from yesterday.

Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.

It is not of so much consequence what you say, as how you say it. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some single irradiating word.

I have learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels that men call fame.

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.