When thou are not pleased, beloved, Then my heart is sad and darkened, As the shining river darkens When the clouds drop shadows on it! When thou smilest, my beloved, Then my troubled heart is brightened, As in sunshine gleam the ripples That the cold wind makes in rivers.

White swan of cities slumbering in thy nest . . . White phantom city, whose untrodden streets Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting Shadows of the palaces and strips of sky.

Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.

I am never indifferent, and never pretend to be, to what people say or think of my books. They are my children, and I like to have them liked.

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest of all the arts.

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.