Let us resolve: First, to attain the grace of silence; second, to deem all fault finding that does no good a sin; third, to practice the grade and virtue of praise.

Friends are discovered rather than made; there are people who are in their own nature friends, only they don't know each other; but certain things, like poetry, music, and paintings are like the Freemason's sign, they reveal the initiated to each other.

The pain of discipline is short, but the glory of the fruition is eternal.

O, because I have had only that kind of benevolence which consists in lying on a sofa, and cursing the church and clergy for not being martyrs and confessors. One can see, you know, very easily, how others ought to be martyrs.

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.

God has always been to me not so much like a father as like a dear and tender mother.

Why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?