We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series.

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

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

There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head could carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked old wild sea-songs, minding nobody... Often I have heard the house shaking with Yo-ho-ho and a bottle and rum, all the neighbours joining in for dear life with the fear of death upon them and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark. Fiften men on the dead man's chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil have done for the rest. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact.

It takes hard writing to make easy reading.

The obscurest epoch is to-day.