'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.

Don't judge a book by its cover

A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men.

Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

The rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families.

Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Don't you meddle with me, and I won't meddle with you.

The purpose of suffering is to contain the light of your desire until you see yourself in everything.

I fear that someday you will abandon the joys we share and find another not worthy of your charms.

All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.

Yeah 'ear 'ear, " said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched.

Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.

Court an idea as long as you like, but be careful before marrying it.

There is no substitute for experience

In politics as on a sickbed men toss from side to side in hope of lying more comfortably.

I love three things," I then say. "I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth." "And which do you love best?" "The dream.

The old and honorable idea of 'vocation' is simply that we each are called, by God, or by our gifts, or by our preference, to a kind of good work for which we are particularly fitted.