Every notion that any man, dead, living, or unborn, might form as to the universe will necessarily prove wrong

I take it that I must be the eternal playfellow of time. For piety and common-sense and death are rightfully time's toys; and it is with these three that I divert myself.

What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this.

Literature is a vast bazaar where customers come to purchase everything except mirrors.

There is no escaping, at times, the gloomy suspicion that fiddling with pens and ink is, after all, no fit employment for a grown man.

In religious matters a traveller loses nothing by civility.

The touch of time does more than the club of Hercules.