It really seems as if failure and hardship make more of a human being of folks than success.

If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose.

I don't so much mind the falling, but I do seem to select the hardest spots to light on.

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be...gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier...it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book.

a trouble shared is a trouble half endured.

there was nothing in the whole world so dreadful as the power of riches wrongly used.

The Cardinal ... It was as if a pulsing heart of flame passed by when he came winging through the orchard.