The chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realizing that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.

Which of us is not saying to himself which of us has not been saying to himself all his life: " I shall alter that when I have a little more time"? We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.

Pessimism, when you get used to it, is just as agreeable as optimism.

The makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. If you have formed...literary taste...your life will be one long ecstasy of denying that the world is a dull place.

Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate.

The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.

Good taste is better than bad taste, but bad taste is better than no taste.