To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

Life, I fancy, would very often be insupportable, but for the luxury of self compassion.

Money is time. With money I buy for cheerful use the hours which otherwise would not in any sense be mine; nay, which would make me their miserable bondsman.

For the man sound of body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

One of the shining moments of my day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, out-of-doors coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray.... [H]ow delicious is the soft yet penetrating odour which floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot!... What a glow does it bring after a walk in chilly rain!

Human creatures have a mervellous power of adapting themselves to necessity.

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.