The fire of true enthusiasm is like the fires of Baku, which no water can ever quench, and which burn steadily on from night to day, and year to year, because their well-spring is eternal.

Honor is an old-world thing; but it smells sweet to those in whose hand it is strong.

Friendship is usually treated...as a tough...thing which will survive all manner of bad treatment. But this is an exceedingly great and foolish error; it may die in an hour of a single unwise word.

We only see clearly when we have reached the depths of woe.

What is failure except feebleness? And what is it to miss one's mark except to aim widely and weakly?

For Pastrasche was their alpha and omega; their treasury and granary; their store of gold and wand of wealth; their bread-winner and minister; their only friend and comforter. ... Pastrasche was their dog.

Women hope that the dead love may revive; but men know that of all dead things none are so past recall as a dead passion.