A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even a solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it.

how poor and disheartening a thing is experience compared with hope!

Everywhere bees go racing with the hours, / For every bee becomes a drunken lover, / Standing upon his head to sup the flowers.

There's no beginning to the farmer's year, / Only recurrent patterns on a scroll / Unwinding...

Travel is in sad case. It is uncomfortable, it is expensive; it is a source of annoyance to our friends, and of loneliness to ourselves.

Is it better to be extremely ambitious, or rather modest? Probably the latter is safer; but I hate safety, and would rather fail gloriously than dingily succeed.

For the last 40 years of my life I have broken my back, my fingernails, and sometimes my heart, in the practical pursuit of my favourite occupation.