We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead

A man doesn’t plant a tree for himself. He plants it for posterity.

I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.

Trees are your best antiques

Everything is sweetened by risk.

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.

The saddest thing that befalls a soul Is when it loses faith in God and woman.

In winter, when the dismal rain comes down in slanting lines, and wind, that grand old harper, smote his thunder-harp of pines.

Stirling, like a huge brooch, clasps Highlands and Lowlands together.

How deeply seated in the human heart is the liking for gardens and gardening.

The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they – and as taciturn

Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled,...

To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.

The sea complains upon a thousand shores.

I would rather be remembered by a song than by a victory.

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not...

Death is the ugly fact which Nature has to hide, and she hides it well.

The dining hall is the best place to meet people. I know it’s hard to do.

Books are a finer world within the world.

If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness

To sit for one’s portrait is like being present at one’s own creation

A great man is the man who does something for the first time.

Every man’s road in life is marked by the graves of his personal liking

If you do your fair day’s work, you are certain to get your fair day’s wage – in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life

The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius,...

Trees are your best antiques.

I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. I breathe the morning air of the world while the scent of Eden’s roses yet lingered in it, while it vibrated only to the...

If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes...

A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.

A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.

If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race.

There is no ghost so difficult to lay as the ghost of an injury

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.