The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much.

when we leave society and come into the presence of Nature, we become children again; and the fictions of thought and action assumed among men drop off like a garment.

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.

I wear the key of memory, and can open every door in the house of my life.

Events that are predestined require but little management. They manage themselves. They slip into place while we sleep, and suddenly we are aware that the thing we fear to attempt, is already accomplished.

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

No man was ever ruined from without; the final ruin comes from within, when you turn hopeless and lose courage!