The wisest men are wise to the full in death.

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

No one can do me any good by loving me; I have more love than I need or could do any good with; but people do me good by making me love them - which isn't easy.

Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, the sailor perceives these decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict a saint's day; and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all; and they give plenary and brief without listening to confession.

A man is born an artist as a hippopotamus is born a hippopotamus; and you can no more make yourself one than you can make yourself a giraffe.

So far as I have myself observed, the distinctive character of a child is to live always in the tangible present.

The proof of a thing's being right is that it has power over the heart; that it excites us, wins us, or helps us.