Beauty is ever to the lonely mind a shadow fleeting; she is never plain. She is a visitor who leaves behind the gift of grief, the souvenir of pain.

Truth is the ricochet of a prejudice bouncing off a fact.

Happiness is surely the best teacher of good manners: only the unhappy are churlish in deportment.

One of the penalties of being a human being is other human beings.

A mind too proud to unbend over the small ridiculosa of life is as painful as a library with no trash in it.

All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim.

They go in [to the library] not because they need any certain volume but because they feel that there may be some book that needs them.