And he writhed inside at what seemed the cruelty and unfairness of the demand. He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to do another and harder and better one.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

God has infinite attention, infinite leisure to spare for each one of us. He doesn't have to take us in the line. You're as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He'd ever created.

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.

And what about you? You must be some kind of beardless dwarf?...You mean to say, that you're a daughter of Eve?...Y-yes, but, you are in fact... human?

Beauty is not democratic; she reveals herself more to the few than to the many.