We are all of us very perfect creatures so long as we are not tried.

Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning.

Every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost.

genius is original, unique; and in whatever form it may develop itself is the greatest gift that can be given to man, the strongest known link between the material life we have and the spiritual life that we can only guess at. Every great poet, painter, or musician - every inventor or man of science, every fine actor or orator, comes to us as the exponent of something diviner than we know. We cannot understand it, but we feel it, and acknowledge it.

Though it is folly to suppose that happiness is a matter of volition, and that we can make ourselves content and cheerful whenever we choose - a theory that many poor hypochondriacs are taunted with till they are nigh driven mad - yet, on the other hand, no sane mind is ever left without the power of self-discipline and self-control in a measure, which measure increases in proportion as it is exercised.

One only "right" we have to assert in common with mankind--and that is as much in our hands as theirs--is the right of having something to do.

The world! It is a word capable of as diverse interpretations or misinterpretations as the thing itself - a thing by various people supposed to belong to heaven, man, or the devil, or alternatively to all three.