It is the sternest philosophy, but on the whole the truest, that, in the wide arena of the world, failure and success are not accidents, as we so frequently suppose, but the strictest justice.

The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality.

How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.

It is a characteristic of pleasure that we can never recognize it to be pleasure till after it is gone.

In my garden I spend my days; in my library I spend my nights.

Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.

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