Never write up your diary on the day itself, for it takes longer than that to know what happened.

It's a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.

There is an innate decorum in man, and it is not fair to thrust Truth upon people when they don't expect it. Only the very generous are ready for Truth impromptu.

What is the virtue and service of a book? Only to help me live less gingerly and shabbily.

Truth is what every man sees lurking at the bottom of his own soul, like the oyster shell housewives put in the kitchen kettle to collect the lime from the water. By and by each man's iridescent oyster shell of Truth becomes coated with the lime of prejudice and hearsay.

Everybody thinks of others as being excessively human, with all the frailties and crotchets appertaining to that curious condition. But each of us also seems to regard himself as existing on a detached plane of observation, exempt (save in moments of avid crisis) from the strange whims of humanity en masse.