The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope.

Never does one feel oneself so utterly helpless as in trying to speak comfort for great bereavement.

The only thing that makes one place more attractive to me than another is the quantity of heart I find in it.

In spite of the honestest efforts to annihilate my I-ity, or merge it in what the world doubtless considers my better half, I still find myself a self-subsisting and alas! self-seeking me.

Instead of boiling up individuals into the species, I would draw a chalk circle round every individuality, and preach to it to keep within that, and preserve and cultivate its identity.

When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.

the less one does, as I long ago observed, the less one can find time to do.

I am not at all the sort of person you and I took me for.

The glittering baits of titles and honours are only for children and fools.

If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: Byron is dead!

People who are so dreadfully "devoted" to their wives are so apt, from mere habit, to get devoted to other people's wives as well.

A story is never complete.

Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.

New Year's Day is every man's birthday.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

If you understand why a monkey in a family is always mocked and harassed, you understand why monks are rejected by all--both old and young.

My music was typically continental - nothing like, say, The Beatles.

The clog of all pleasure, the luggage of life, is the best can be said for a very good wife.

I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad.

I think we need to find somebody that can meet that standard.

When people bump up against one another in the course of pursuing their goals, it is in everyone's interest to resolve any resulting problems in the least costly ways possible.