The degree in which a poet's imagination dominates reality is, in the end, the exact measure of his importance and dignity.

Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.

A friend's only gift is himself.

An operation that eventually kills may be technically successful, and the man may die cured; and so a description of religion thatshowed it to be madness might first show how real and warm it was, so that if it perished, at least it would perish understood.

Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with the part of another; people are friends in spots.

My remembrance of the past is a novel I am constantly recomposing; and it would not be a historical novel, but sheer fiction, if the material events which mark and ballast my career had not their public dates and characters scientifically discoverable.

Real unselfishness consists in sharing the interests of others.