“Eve is a twofold mystery.”
“Books succeed, and lives fail.”
“Who so loves believes the impossible.”
“Since when was genius found respectable?”
“I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.”
“The devil's most devilish when respectable.”
“For 'Tis not in mere death that men die most.”
“If you desire faith, then you have faith enough.”
“A woman's always younger than a man at equal years.”
“Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor's done.”
“What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?”
“Men get opinions as boys learn to spell by reiteration chiefly.”
“And lips say ''God be pitiful,'' who never said, ''God be praised.''”
“Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand.”
“He, in his developed manhood, stood, a little sunburn by the glare of life.”
“But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence than the strong man in his wrath!”
“The beautiful seems right by force of beauty, and the feeble wrong because of weakness.”
“Let no one till his death be called unhappy. Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.”
“The man, most man, works best for men: and, if most man indeed, he gets his manhood plainest from his soul.”
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”
“How many desolate creatures on the earth have learnt the simple dues of fellowship and social comfort, in a hospital.”
“What monster have we here? A great Deed at this hour of day? A great just deed -- and not for pay? Absurd -- or insincere?”
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
“God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers and thrust the thing we have prayed for in our face, like a gauntlet with a gift in it.”
“Hurt a fly! He would not for the world: he's pitiful to flies even. ''Sing,'' says he, ''and tease me still, if that's your way, poor insect.''”
“A good neighbor sometimes cuts your morning up to mince-meat of the very smallest talk, then helps to sugar her bohea at night with your reputation.”
“The world's male chivalry has perished out, but women are knights-errant to the last; and, if Cervantes had been greater still, he had made his Don a Donna.”
“This race is never grateful: from the first, One fills their cup at supper with pure wine, Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge, In bitter vinegar.”
“The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, ''Let no one be called happy till his death;'' to which I would add, ''Let no one, till his death be called unhappy.''”
“What is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?”