Errors look so very ugly in persons of small means –one feels they are taking quite a liberty in going astray; whereas people of fortune may naturally indulge in a few delinquencies.

Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on...

A medical man likes to make psychological observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set at nought.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

He had no ideal world of dead heroes; he knew little of the life of men in the past; he must find the beings to whom he could cling with loving admiration among those who...

Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles… but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but...

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which...

I hold it a blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

Music sweeps by me as a messenger – Carrying a message that is not for me

There are glances of hatred that stab, and raise no cry of murder.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar/And what we have been makes us what we are.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away...

If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you’d...

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

You must mind and not lower the Church in people’s eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for such a little thing.

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles. What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?

Friendships begin with liking or gratitude roots that can be pulled up.

Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and...

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each...

That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger–not to be interfered with by speech or action...

The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who...

Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius’s violins without Antonio

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

If we had lost our own chief good, other people’s good would remain, and that is worth trying for.

Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you.’I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl’s life, that there must always be...

In bitter manuscript remarks on other men’s notions about solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.

Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents towards itself, and makes the whole life its tributary.

Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.

A man vows, and yet will not east away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it...

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving

A mother’s yearning feels the presence of the cherished child even in the degraded man.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness

Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

There is a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness and of love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage to irremediable weakness.

Breed is stronger than pasture

Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it?

He sat watching what went forward with the quiet outward glance of healthy old age.

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.

I should be glad to see a good change in anybody, Mr. Godfrey.’ she answered, with the slightest discernible difference of tone, ‘but it ‘ud be better if no change was wanted.

In bed our yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some resistance to the past—sensations which...