When a man has calamity upon calamity the world generally concludes that he must be a very wicked man to deserve them. Perhaps the world is right; but it is also just possible that the world ... may be wrong.

... if fiction does not show us a better life than reality, what is the good of it?

Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.

The first step is what I like to be sure of ... to the second step it often binds you.

Old age is the verdict of life.

It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.

... how poorly do we love even those whom we love most! We are not only bruised by the limitations of their love for us, but also by the limitations of our own love for them.