This world has many rings, like Saturn, and we live now on the outmost of them all. None can say deliberately that he inhabits thesame sphere, or is contemporary, with the flower which his hands have plucked, and though his feet may seem to crush it, inconceivable spaces and ages separate them, and perchance there is no danger that he will hurt it.

We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in haste.

On the whole, Chaucer impresses us as greater than his reputation, and not a little like Homer and Shakespeare, for he would haveheld up his head in their company.

I have learned that even the smallest house can be a home.

When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us; we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn.

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show.

Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.