This grove, that was now so peaceful, must then have rung with cries, I thought; and even with the thought I could believe I heard it ringing still.
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 in almost any state of health.
And if a man reads very hard, as the old anecdote reminds us, he will have little time for thought.
A little amateur painting in water colors shows the innocent and the quiet mind.
If you want a person’s faults, go to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know.
Everyday life is a stimulating mixture of order and haphazardry. The sun rises and sets on schedule but the wind bloweth where it listeth.
If a man lives to any considerable age, it can not be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation.
There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear, and welcome.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I seek, the heaven above And the road below me.
O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song!
Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other, both in mind and body.
To the old our mouths are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above our heads, on life’s raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity.
Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honorable defeat to be a form of victory.
Doubtless the world is quite right in a million ways; but you have to be kicked about a little to convince you of the fact.
The only noble thing a man can do with money is to build a schooner.
Every man is his own doctor of divinity, in the last resort.
The first experience can never be repeated. The first love, the first sun-rise, the first South Sea Island, are memories apart, and touched a virginity of sense.
Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer made my mate.
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.
I am painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange – a very strange one. It is one of those affairs that cannot be mended by talking.