Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.

I easily sink into mere absorption of what other minds have done, and should like a whole life for that alone.

The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one's life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation and misery on the face of this beautiful earth.

Fatally powerful as religious systems have been, human nature is stronger and wider, and though dogmas may hamper they cannot absolutely repress its growth.

One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.

We are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it is unpleasant to us.

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.