Evil is a necessary part of the order of the universe.

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.

Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.

The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.

The trouble is that thinking looks like loafing. Who wants to pay people for daydreaming?

I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.