The first lesson of life is to burn our own smoke; that is, not to inflict on outsiders our personal sorrows and petty morbidness, not to keep thinking of ourselves as exceptional cases.

A man is old when he can pass an apple orchard and not remember the stomachache.

[B]ut in literature, it should be remembered, a thing always becomes his at last who says it best, and thus makes it his own.

In the scale of the destinies, brawn will never weigh so mach as brain.

There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.

Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, And the wind breathes low; Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all; Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop’s fall.

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.