To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself.

For a while I shall still be leaving, looking back at you as you slip away into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all are alive, believing that in a single poignant hour we did say all that we could ever say in a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind.

There are always a few such people who demand the utmost of life and yet cannot come to terms with its stupidity and crudeness.

A father can pass on his nose and eyes and even his intelligence to his child, but not his soul. In every human being the soul is new

It taught him how to listen -- how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting soul, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.

...and gradually his face assumed the expressions which are so often found among rich people - the expressions of discontent, of sickliness, of displeasure, of idleness, of lovelessness. Slowly the soul sickness of the rich crept over him.