We could never have loved the earth so well if we had no childhood in it if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass . . .

I take a dose of mathematics every day to prevent my brain from becoming quite soft.

There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear.

... we all know the wag's definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of the distance.

Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what may be the elements of excuse for us.