Our selfishness is so robust and many-clutching that, well encouraged, it easily devours all sustenance away from our poor little scruples.

Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages and poets.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

Jews are not fit for Heaven, but on earth they are most useful.

the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims ... to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy.

The early months of marriage often are times of critical tumult,--whether that of a shrimp pool or of deeper water,--which afterwards subside into cheerful peace.

It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.