We all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

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.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

The perpetual mourner -- the grief that can never be healed -- is innocently enough felt to be wearisome by the rest of the world. And my sense of desolation increases. Each day seems a new beginning -- a new acquaintance with grief.

I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.

Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.