Wine and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them.

But certain winds will make men's temper bad.

If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

We reap what we sow, but nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit, that spring from no planting of ours.

Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement.

To superficial observers his chin had too vanishing an aspect, looking as if it were being gradually reabsorbed. And it did indeed cause him some difficulty about the fit of his satin stocks, for which chins were at that time useful.

Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows.