The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy.

It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms.

Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.

The power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination.

We talk of wild animals, but the wildest animal is man.

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion.