For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.

Jews are not fit for Heaven, but on earth they are most useful.

What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?

What a wretched lot of old shrivelled creatures we shall be by-and-by. Never mind - the uglier we get in the eyes of others, the lovelier we shall be to each other; that has always been my firm faith about friendship.

My books don't seem to belong to me after I have once written them; and I find myself delivering opinions about them as if I had nothing to do with them.

Speech may be barren; but it is ridiculous to suppose that silence is always brooding on a nestful of eggs.

I think cheerfulness is a fortune in itself.