Better to work and fail than to sleep one's life away.

Seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes - some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world - some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.

It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.

But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.

(Speaking of the Cistercian monks) A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature's voices all around them--the soft singing of the waters, the wisperings of the river grass, the music of the rushing wind--should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not.

We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe.

It's really extraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there must be. We all do it as it was never done before.