There is nothing so depressing as a constant contemplation of one's self, and the greatest moral cowardice in the world's opinion comes from consulting one's own personal convenience.

Education! Is it education to teach the young that their chances of happiness depend on being richer than their neighbors? Yet that is what it all tends to. Get on! - be successful!

work is happiness. No one can take my work from me and therefore no one can take my happiness from me.

Years should be nothing to you. Who asked you to count them or consider them? In the world of wild Nature, time is measured by seasons only-the bird does not know how old it is-the rose-tree does not count its birthdays!

The Browning love story? It is an ideal, all too rare, and yet I hardly think it strange. It would have been far stranger had the fates allowed those two brilliant passionate souls to beat themselves out in silence.

Pleasure for others is the only pleasure possible to me. I assure you I'm quite selfish! - I'm greedy for the happiness of those I love - and if they can't or won't be happy I'm perfectly miserable.

Greatness is always envied - it is only mediocrity that can boast of a host of friends.