The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief — a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.

Ignorance ... is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.

There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in a blank absence of interest or sympathy.

He was of an impressible nature, and lived a great deal in other people's opinions and feelings concerning himself.

For we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them.

Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth; we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.