Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

We reap what we sow, but nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit, that spring from no planting of ours.

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.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

We are overhasty to speak as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours.

Might, could, would - they are contemptible auxiliaries.

Better a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.