Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else - very rarely to those who say to themselves, 'Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!'.

See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout.

Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.