I've got the key to my castle in the air, but whether I can unlock the door remains to be seen.

Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can

I asked for bread, and I got a stone in the shape of a pedestal.

. . . for when women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty.

It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.

To most the end comes as naturally and simply as sleep.