Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.

Joy and sorrow are both my perpetual companions, but the joy is called Past and the sorrow Present.

We have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands.

It had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

We are apt to think it the finest era of the world when America was beginning to be discovered, when a bold sailor, even if he were wrecked, might alight on a new kingdom.

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.