Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory, and the truth of every passion wants some pretence to make it live.

For a moment I had a view of a world that seemed to wear a vast and dismal aspect of disorder, while, in truth, thanks to our unwearied efforts, it is as sunny an arrangement of small conveniences as the mind of man can conceive.

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs.

I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.

There is a kind way of assisting our fellow-creatures which is enough to break their hearts while it saves their outer envelope.

I slipped the book into my pocket. I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.