Upon meeting, you're judged by your clothes, upon parting you're judged by your wits.

If you asked someone, 'Can you play the violin?' and he says, 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,' you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: 'I don't know, I have not tried,' as though one had only to try and one would become a writer.

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

The whole trouble lies in that people think that there are conditions excluding the necessity of love in their intercourse with man, but such conditions do not exist. Things may be treated without love; one may chop wood, make bricks, forge iron without love, but one can no more deal with people without love than one can handle bees without care.

God forgive me everything!' she said, feeling the impossibility of struggling.

If every man could act as he chose, the whole of history would be a tissue of disconnected accidents.

The Lord had given them the day and the Lord had given them the strength. And the day and the strength had been dedicated to labor, and the labor was its reward. Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? These were irrelevant and idle questions.