"The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends."

“There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play, as 'form' to literature. It strongly defines its content.”

“For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not for him in the night any so hideous phantasmagoria as will not become, in the clarity of the next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, and he sees nothing dreadful after all. "Why not?" is the sun’s bright message to him, and "Why not indeed?" his answer.”

“You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by standing a whole flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by this time, some real progress towards civilization. Segregate him, and he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost —- he becomes a unit in unreason.”

“It is so much easier to covet what one hasn’t than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn’t.”

“Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up.”

“The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.”