... happy husbands and wives can hear each other say the same thing over and over again without being tired.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a person's death consecrates him or her anew to us. It is as if life were not sacred too, as if it were comparatively a small thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother or sister who has to climb the whole toilsome mountain with us. It seems as if all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey.

Don't let us rejoice in punishment, even when the hand of God alone inflicts it. The best of us are but poor wretches, just saved from shipwreck. Can we feel anything but awe and pity when we see a fellow-passenger swallowed by the waves?

Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine and with human labor.

It is never too late to become the person you always thought you could be.

You may try — but you can never imagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl.