The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own.

The more we feel sorry for ourselves, the less sorry others will feel for us. People don't waste their small store of sympathy on those who can provide it so richly for themselves.

As Coleridge said, "We receive but what we give." The happy life is a life of continual generosity in which we go out to meet and acclaim the world.

Every writer and artist wonders what in the world people of other professions can find to live for.

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

You generally hear that what a man doesn't know doesn't hurt him, but in business what a man doesn't know does hurt.