I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh.

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.

My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?

The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.