I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.

And if it happened to be a Christmas-night when the great bell seemed to rattle in its throat as it called the faithful to the midnight mass, there was such an indescribable air of life spread over the sombre facade that the great door-way looked as if it were swallowing the entire crowd, and the rose-window staring at them.

We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.

There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering--a hell of boredom.

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.

A house is built of logs and stone, of tiles and posts and piers; a home is built of loving deeds that stand a thousand years.