Life is not a matter of holding good cards

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.

Some day...after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you.

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.

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.

When your toil has been a pleasure, you have not earned money merely, but money, health, delight, and moral profit, all in one.

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