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

the fruit of life is experience, not happiness.

Human relations are built on feeling, not on reason or knowledge. And feeling is not an exact science; like all spiritual qualities, it has the vagueness of greatness about it.

We generally get the evil we expect.

A poverty that is universal may be cheerfully borne; it is an individual poverty that is painful and humiliating.

Spiritual favors are not always to be looked for, and not always to be relied on.

if a thing is to be done, there is no time like the hour that has not struck.