Truth, like climate, is common property.

It is impossible to forget the sense of dignity which marks the hour when one becomes a wage-earner... I felt that I had suddenly acquired value to myself, to my family, and to the world.

Imagination is built upon knowledge.

... when one reflects on the books one never has written, and never may, though their schedules lie in the beautiful chirography which marks the inception of an unexpressed thought upon the pages of one's notebook, one is aware, of any given idea, that the chances are against its ever being offered to one's dearest readers.

Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if He had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material.

Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful, the formation of fixed habits of work.

... to work, to work hard, to see work steadily, and see it whole, was the way to be reputable. I think I always respected a goodblacksmith more than a lady of leisure.