The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

What is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity.

The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature.

Expenditure--like ugliness and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others.

When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business - that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time.

There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet.

It's no use filling your pocket with money if you have got a hole in the corner.