It is almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim that you think you are beautiful.

The value of books is proportionate to what may be called their plasticity -- their quality of being all things to all men, of being diversely moulded by the impact of fresh forms of thought.

In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires.

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by one's self?

I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.

Habit is necessary. It is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive ... one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in the big things, and happy in small ways.