Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.

We are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our grief in silence, and act as if we were not suffering.

...Though there's reasons in things as nobody knows on---- that's pretty much what I've made out; yet some folks are so wise they'll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the real reason's winking at 'em in the corner, and they niver see't.

There is no short-cut no patent tram-road, to wisdom. After all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must still be trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.

History, we know, is apt to repeat itself.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.