Tragedy is in the eye of the observer, and not in the heart of the sufferer.

The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

Napoleon said of Massena, that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him; then, when the dead began to fall in ranks around him, awoke his powers of combination, and he put on terror and victory as a robe.

To wade in marshes and sea margins is the destiny of certain bird, and they are so accurately made for this that they are imprisoned in those places. Each animal out of its habitat would starve. To the physician, each man, each woman, is an amplification of one organ. A soldier, a locksmith, a bank-clerk, and a dancer could not exchange functions. And thus we are victims of adaptation.

In the right hands, literature is not resorted to as a consolation, and by the broken and decayed, but as a decalogue.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

Whilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found, cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.