The manner of his life was of no importance. What affected her was that he had once been young. That he had grown old, and was now dead. That was all. Youth and vigour had come to that. Youth and vigour always came to that. Everything came to that.
Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.
Every scene, even the commonest, is wonderful, if only one can detach oneself, casting off all memory of use and custom and behold it, as it were, for the first time.
Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate.
The proper, wise balancing of one’s whole life may depend upon the feasibility of a cup of tea at an unusual hour.
The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one’s sympathy the gloom of somebody else.
It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.
Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.
You are not in charge of the universe; you are in charge of yourself.
Good taste is better than bad taste, but bad taste is better than no taste.
The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way at the same time every day, and savoring it, should be noted.
The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.
Beware of undertaking too much at the start. Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents. Allow for human nature, especially your own.
The price of Justice is eternal publicity.
It is only people of small stature who have to stand on their dignity.
A man of sixty has spent twenty years in bed and over three years in eating.
You wake up in the morning, and your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of un-manufactured tissue of the universe of your life! It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. And no one receives either more or less than you receive.
Only a very gifted mind could cope singly with all the problems which present themselves in the perfecting of a home.
The real Tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort-he never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature.
One of the chief things which my typical man has to learn is that the mental faculties are capable of a continuous hard activity; they do not tire like an arm or a leg. All they want is change – not rest, except in sleep.