For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.

... the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection.

To men who only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's dock is disgrace.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinnertime.

Power of generalizing gives men so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals.

To an old memory like mine the present days are but as a little water poured on the deep.

There's no disappointment in memory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.

Melodies die out, like the pipe of Pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them.

Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.

How oft review; each finding, like a friend, Something to blame, and something to commend.

There are answers which, in turning away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room.

To have suffered much is like knowing many languages. Thou hast learned to understand all.

Religion, like all things, begins with self, And naught is known, until one knows himself.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it.

The fact is, both callers and work thicken - the former sadly interfering with the latter.

Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?

The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among people with such petty thoughts?

The higher life begins for us ... when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.

The best travel is that which one can take by one's own fireside. In memory or imagination.

You are a good young man," she said. "But I do not like husbands. I will never have another.

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

It is necessary to me, not simply to be but to utter, and I require utterance of my friends.

The first sense of mutual love excludes other feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.

... when one's outward lot is perfect, the sense of inward imperfection is the more pressing.

Some people are born to make life pretty, and others to grumble that it is not pretty enough.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love him dearly.

We have all our secret sins; and if we knew ourselves we should not judge each other harshly.

Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than leave it him in your will.

Education was almost entirely a matter of luck — usually of ill-luck — in those distant days.

Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on.

There are new eras in one's life that are equivalent to youth-are something better than youth.

... it is seldom a medical man has true religious views--there is too much pride of intellect.

That sort of reputation which precedes performance [is] often the larger part of a man's fame.

That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he's wise.

Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.

There is nothing that will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles.

Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and now he brings back chaos.

That golden sky, which was the doubly blessed symbol of advancing day and of approaching rest.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.

When gratitude has become a matter of reasoning there are many ways of escaping from its bonds.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

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

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