Gems, in fact, are a species of mineral flowers; they are the blossoms of the dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume, they make up in durability.

the temperaments of children are often as oddly unsuited to parents as if capricious fairies had been filling cradles with changelings.

To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.

it isn't mere love and good-will that is needed in a sick-room; it needs knowledge and experience.

So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why doesn't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women.

Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us.

Love needs new leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm-tree, and new branches to grow broader and wider, and new flowers to cover the ground.