How green was my valley then, and the valley of them that have gone.

Why is it, I wonder, that people suffer, when there is so little need, when an effort of will and some hard work would bring them from their misery into peace and contentment.

Everywhere was singing, all over the house was singing, and outside the house was alive with singing, and the very air was song.

Though neither happiness nor respect are worth anything, because unless both are coming from the truest motives, they are simply deceits. A successful man earns the respect of the world never mind what is the state of his mind, or his manner of earning. So what is the good of such respect, and how happy will such a man be in himself? And if he is what passes for happy, such a state is lower than the self-content of the meanest animal.

Strange that only a little problem of your own will take your mind far from a tragedy belonging to others.

How green was my valley then, and the valley of them that have gone.

I saw my father as a man, and not, as a man who was my father.