It is useless to deny that, unless one has a genius for imparting knowledge, teaching is a drudgery.

as everybody knows, truthfulness and agreeable manners are often divorced on the ground of incompatibility.

... is there anything more unjust than to build gold and brass and iron on poor, well-meaning clay, -- and then blame the clay when the whole image falls into dust?

A letter is a risky thing; the writer gambles on the reader's frame of mind.

The anger of slow, mild, loving people has a lasting quality that mere bad-tempered folk cannot understand.

Age, per se, may claim tenderness and pity, but not respect; that only comes when the years have brought humanity and wisdom and the experience that worketh hope.

Books are like sapphires; they must be polished - polished! or else you insult your readers.