True tragedy may be defined as a dramatic work in which the outward failure of the principal personage is compensated for by the dignity and greatness of his character.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.

To be individually righteous is the first of all duties, come what may to ones self, to one's country, to society, and to civilization itself.

If we are deprived of hope as well as fear, we are compensated by being given an almost endless patience for enduring or simply for waiting.

February... Now more than ever one must remind oneself that it is wasteful folly to wish that time would pass, or - as the puritanical old saying used to have it - to kill time until it kills you.

Civilizations die from philosophical calm, irony, and a sense of fair play quite as surely as they die of debauchery.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.