My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Wherever we are, it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.

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.

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.

Fiction is to grown men what play is to the child.

After all, the commonplaces are the great poetic truths.