... I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see, for disappointment never fails to ensue.

Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.

There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.

Sure there's different roads from this to Dungarvan* - some thinks one road pleasanter, and some think another; wouldn't it be mighty foolish to quarrel for this? - and sure isn't it twice worse to thry to interfere with people for choosing the road they like best to heaven?

Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.

Some people are capable of making great sacrifices, but few are capable of concealing how much the effort has cost them; and it is this concealment that constitutes their value.