It is wisdom to believe the heart.

Oaths are the fossils of piety.

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.

The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.

People who feel themselves to be exiles in this world are mightily inclined to believe themselves citizens of another.

There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us ashamed of ourselves when it was happening: there is a pleasant panoramic sense of what it all was and how it all had to be. Why, if we are not vain or snobbish, need we desire that it should have been different? The better things we missed may yet be enjoyed or attained by someone else somewhere: why isn't that just as good? And there is no regret, either, in the sense of wishing the past to return, or missing it: it is quite real enough as it is, there at its own date and place.

The loftiest edifices need the deepest foundations.