Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence.

What is your religion? I mean-not what you know about religion but the belief that helps you most?

A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel.

Susceptible persons are more affected by a change of tone that by unexpected words.

I at least have so much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.

Better a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.

It is as useless to fight against the interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog.