I don't mind how many letters I receive from one who interests me as much as you do. The receptive part of correspondence I can carry on with much alacrity. It is writing answers that I groan over.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down.

To the old, sorrow is sorrow; to the young, it is despair.

A common fallacy: to imagine a measure will be easy because we have private motives for desiring it.

No man can be wise on an empty stomach.

I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.