there is no greater fraud or bore than the writer who has acquired the art of saying nothing brilliantly.

Our impulses are our birthright. To alter personality would be unjust, almost criminal, for the impulses that make a fool or worse of us in certain circumstances may be necessary for our happiness.

power, after it has ceased from troubling, is the dominant passion in human nature.

nothing in life is more corroding than habit.

A little superstition is a good thing to keep in one's bag of precautions.

genius must ever be imperfect. Life is not long enough nor slow enough for both brain and character to grow side by side to superhuman proportions.

the curse of human nature is imagination. When a long anticipated moment comes, we always find it pitched a note too low, for the wings of imagination are crushed into its withering sides under the crowding hordes of petty realities.