It is a great error to take oneself for more than one is, or for less than one is worth.

One should not wish anyone disagreeable conditions of life; but for him who is involved in them by chance, they are touchstones of characters and of the most decisive value to man.

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come.

It matters little whether a man be mathematically or philologically or artistically cultivated, so he be but cultivated.

Can a sparrow know how a stork feels?

By nature we have no defect that could not become a strength, no strength that could not become a defect.