For marriage is like life in this—that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

Everyone who got where he is has had to begin where he was.

Alas! in the clothes of the greatest potentate, what is there but a man?

The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.

,Acaso hay algo en la vida que decepcione tanto como lograr lo que se quiere?

REQUIEMUnder the wide and starry skyDig the grave and let me lie:Glad did I live and gladly die,And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me:Here he lies where...

He who indulges habitually in the intoxicating pleasures of imagination, for the very reason that he reaps a greater pleasure than others, must resign himself to a keener pain, a more intolerable and utter prostration.

Certainly, if money could have been raised upon the book, Robert Herrick would long ago have sacrificed that last possession: but the demand for literature, which is so marked a feature in some parts of...

We all know what Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it.

A friend is a gift you give yourself.

They say cowardice is infectious; but then argument is, on the other hand, a great emboldener;

Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health,...

In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands...

I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.

To travel hopefully is better than to have arrived.

Extreme busyness is a symptom of deficient vitality, and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.

If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I do not say “give them up,” for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should...

Literature, although it stands apart by reason of the great destiny and general use of its medium in the affairs of men, is yet an art like other arts. Of these we may distinguish two...

I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a...

In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten […], and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispanola under cover of night,...

When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny after ward, I shall be glad to lie down with...

All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil.

Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it,’ said I. ‘I will try on my side to be no less honest. I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship;...

Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.

That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.

The rain is falling all around,It falls on field and tree,It rains on the umbrellas here,And on the ships at sea.

So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.

Wine is bottled poetry

She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.

A true writer is someone the gods have called to the task.

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.

No, sir. I make it a rule of mine: The more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.

To look back upon the past year, and see how little we have striven and to what small purpose: and how often we have been cowardly and hung back, or temerarious and rushed unwisely in;...

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;She shines on thieves on the garden wall,On streets and fields and harbour quays,And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without...

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.

A good conscience is eight parts of courage.

To My MotherYou too, my mother, read my rhymesFor love of unforgotten times,And you may chance to hear once moreThe little feet along the floor.

The VagabondGive to me the life I love,Let the lave go by me,Give the jolly heaven aboveAnd the byway nigh me.Bed in the bush with stars to see,Bread I dip in the river -There’s the...

Half a capital and half a country town, the whole city leads a double existence; it has long trances of the one and flashes of the other; like the king of the Black Isles, it...

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and...

To be honest, to be kind – to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary...

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.

By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a...

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

He recollected his courage.

A writer can live by his writing. If not so luxuriously as by other trades, then less luxuriously. The nature of the work he does all day will more affect his happiness than the quality...