if you have once thoroughly bored somebody it is next to impossible to unbore him.

[Walking] is the perfect way of moving if you want to see into the life of things. It is the one way of freedom. If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.

Books have their idiosyncrasies as well as people, and will not show me their full beauties unless the place and time in which they are read suits them.

Who can begin conventional amiability the first thing in the morning?

If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shriek of your relations...don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbours in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck.

... Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer.

Well, I for one am unable to imagine how anybody who lives with an intelligent and devoted dog can every be lonely.