Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.

Nearly all bookish people are snobs, and especially the more enlightened among them. They are apt to assume that if a writer has immense circulation, if he is enjoyed by plain persons, and if he can fill several theatres at once, he cannont possibly be worth reading and merits only indifference and disdain.

Worry is evidence of an ill-controlled brain; it is merely a stupid waste of time in unpleasantness. If men and women practiced mental calisthenics as they do physical calisthenics, they would purge their brains of this foolishness.

Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.

The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way at the same time every day, and savoring it, should be noted.

Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterward live finely

It is difficult to make a reputation, but is even more difficult seriously to mar a reputation once properly made --- so faithful is the public.