Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind, and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

The worst service, I fancy, that anyone can do for truth, is to set silly people writing on its behalf.

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

I would not creep along the coast but steer Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.

The sense of an entailed disadvantage - the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.

It is not true that love makes all things easy; it makes us choose what is difficult.