To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.

But with regard to critical occasions, it often happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until the last.

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.

Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions for the future.

... the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection.

Fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.