One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that "as soon as we have found the key of life it opes the gates of death." Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one!

Human experience is usually paradoxical.

autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called 'Memoirs.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

Nothing at times is more expressive than silence.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions; about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest.