It is natural to want to forget, Anna, when everyday is a brimful of sadness. But those souls also forgot those that they had loved. You do not want that, surely? I have heard some preach that God wants us to forget the dead, but I cannot believe so. I think He gives us precious recollections so that we may not be parted entirely from those He has given us to love. You must cherish your memories of your babes, Anna, until you see them again in Heaven.

If a man is to lose his fortune, it is a good thing if he were poor before he acquired it, for poverty requires aptitude.

Despair is a cavern beneath our feet and we teeter on its very brink.

We are not the only animal that mourns; apes do, and elephants, and dogs. Yet we are the only one that tortures.

The great thing about being always among people of noble manners was the inevitable elevation of one's own.

Moral certainty can deafen people to any truth other than their own.

Sometimes I want to have a mental book burning that would scour my mind clean of all the filthy visions literature has conjured there. But how to do without 'The Illiad?' How to do without 'Macbeth?