The fact is that purification and austerity are even more necessary for the appreciation of life and laughter than for anything else. To let no bird fly past unnoticed, to spell the stones and weeds, to have the mind a storehouse of sunset, requires a discipline in pleasure and an education in gratitude.

We can’t turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls.

The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.

Evil comes at leisure like the disease. Good comes in a hurry like the doctor.

I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.

Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace.

Every man who will not have softening of the heart must at last have softening of the brain