. . .the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvelous, the most miraculous. . . the greatest, the least, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private till today. . . I cannot bring myself to tell you: guess what it is.

There are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night.

war often breaks out when there is the most talk of peace.

We are never satisfied with having done well; and in endeavoring to do better, we do much worse.

. . . this life is a perpetual chequer-work of good and evil, pleasure and pain. When in possession of what we desire, we are only so much the nearer losing it; and when at a distance from it, we live in expectation of enjoying it again.

Thicken your religion a little. It is evaporating altogether by being subtilized.

The human heart will never wrinkle