It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.

Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality, and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.

Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers.

Do not measure success by today's harvest. Measure success by the seeds you plant today.

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.

A child should always say what's true, And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table: At least as far as he is able.