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

I am not afraid of the truth, if any one could tell it me, but I am afraid of parts of it impertinently uttered.

A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect.

I would rather do a good hours work weeding than write two pages of my best; nothing is so interesting as weeding. I went crazy over the outdoor work, and at last had to confine myself to the house, or literature must have gone by the board.

The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain common work as it comes certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.

We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.

It takes hard writing to make easy reading.