Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul.

To be good we must needs have suffered; but perhaps it is necessary to have caused suffering before we can become better.

We are never the same with others as when we are alone. We are different, even when we are in the dark with them.

(there is) no other means of escaping from one's consciousness than to deny it, to look upon it as an organic disease of the terrestrial intelligence - a disease which we must endeavor to cure by an action which must appear to us an action of violent and willful madness, but which, on the other side of our appearances, is probably an action of health. ("Of Immortality")

You do well to have visions of a better life than of every day, but it is the life of every day from which the elements of a better life must come.

All mothers are rich when they love their children. There are no poor mothers, no ugly ones, no old ones. Their love is always the most beautiful of joys.

Many a happiness in life, a many a disaster, is due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.