Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

In the man whose childhood has known caresses and kindness, there is always a fiber of memory that can be touched to gentle issues.

I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.

Blameless people are always the most exasperating.

There is no short-cut no patent tram-road, to wisdom. After all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must still be trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated.