The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.

Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds, from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense.

Essential characteristics of a gentleman: The will to put himself in the place of others; the horror of forcing others into positions from which he would himself recoil; and the power to do what seems to him to be right without considering what others may say or think.

He might wish and wish and never get it - the beauty and the loving in the world!

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls.

Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary suffering and you destroy the very basis of human society.