A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger.

It had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.

No one who has ever known what it is to lose faith in a fellow-man whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of the soul are dulled.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a PREFERENCE for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman's living.

to my thinking, it is more pitiable to bore than to be bored.