Nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of things longer.

I love the chill October days, when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath your feet ... the evenings in late autumn time, when the white mist creeps across the fields, making it seem as though old Earth, feeling the night air cold to its poor bones, were drawing ghostly bedclothes round its withered limbs.

It takes 3 girls to tow always; two to hold the rope, and the other one runs round and round, and giggles.

Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their way, but we, poor mortals, in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company.

Life is a thing to be lived, not spent; to be faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.

When you forget to take the sail at all, then the wind is constantly in your favour both ways. But there! this world is only a probation, and man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction one receives : “Press your tonsils against the underside of your larynx. Then with the convex part of the septum curved upwards so as almost — but not quite — to touch the uvula, try with the tip of your tongue to reach your thyroid. Take a deep breath, and compress your glottis. Now without opening your lips say "Garoo".' And when you have done it they are not satisfied.