Anyone can carry his burden, however heavy, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, until the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.

The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing, and avoids your eye.

In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be a gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy.

Nothing like a little judicious levity.

To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.

I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption and think it long of coming. Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's good fun.

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality.