Sensitive people never like the fatigue of justifying their instincts.

Humankind above all is lazy.

Praise is sunshine; it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth; blame and rebuke are rain and hail; they beat down and bedraggle, even though they may at times be necessary.

One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days ... would be to have women architects. The mischief with the houses built to rent is that they are all male contrivances.

There are in this world two kinds of natures, - those that have wings, and those that have feet, - the winged and the walking spirits. The walking are the logicians; the winged are the instinctive and poetic.

After all, let a man take what pains he may to hush it down, a human soul is an awful, ghostly, unquiet possession for a bad man to have. Who knows the metes and bounds of it? Who knows all its awful perhapses,--those shudderings and tremblings, which it can no more live down than it can outlive its own eternity?

We can make ourselves say the kind things that rise in our hearts and tremble on our lips - do the gentle and helpful deeds which we long to do and shrink back from; and little by little, it will grow easier - the love spoken will bring back the answer of love - the kind deed will bring back a kind deed in return.