... trouble of all kinds is voluble, and has plenty of words, but happiness was never written down.
... if fiction does not show us a better life than reality, what is the good of it?
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.
what is unreasonable is irrefutable.
This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.
Solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition.