Henry Colbert, the miller, always breakfasted with his wife--beyond that he appeared irregularly at the family table.

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and hold fast to the days.

Some things are best learned in calm, others in storm.

Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.

The two friends stood for a few moments on the windy street corner, not speaking a word, as two travelers, who have lost their way, sometimes stand and admit their perplexity in silence. (O Pioneers!)

The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify - it was like the light of truth itself.