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...though There's Reasons In Things As Nobody Knows On---- That's Pretty Much What I've Made Out; Yet Some Folks Are So Wise They'll Find You Fifty Reasons Straight Off, And All The While The Real Reason's Winking At 'em In The Corner, And They Niver See't.

-George Eliot

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...though There's Reasons In

George Eliot

...

...though There's Reasons In Things As Nobody Knows On---- That's Pretty Much What I've Made Out; Yet Some Folks Are So Wise They'll Find You Fifty Reasons Straight Off, And All The While The Real Reason's Winking At 'em In The Corner, And They Niver See't.

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Solomon's Proverbs, I Think, Have Omitted To Say, That As The Sore Palate Findeth Grit, So An Uneasy Consciousness Heareth Innuendos.

Our Deeds Still Travel With Us From Afar, And What We Have Been Makes Us What We Are.

Our Life Is Determined For Us--and It Makes The Mind Very Free When We Give Up Wishing, And Only Think Of Bearing What Is Laid Upon Us, And Doing What Is Given Us To Do.

We Hand Folks Over To God's Mercy, And Show None Ourselves.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life.

It Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

Impatient People, According To Bacon, Are Like The Bees, And Kill Themselves In Stinging Others.

It Is A Very Good Quality In A Man To Have A Trout-stream.

We Are On A Perilous Margin When We Begin To Look Passively At Our Future Selves, And See Our Own Figures Led With Dull Consent Into Insipid Misdoing And Shabby Achievement.

The Impulse To Confession Almost Always Requires The Presence Of A Fresh Ear And A Fresh Heart; And In Our Moments Of Spiritual Need, The Man To Whom We Have No Tie But Our Common Nature, Seems Nearer To Us Than Mother, Brother, Or Friend. Our Daily Familiar Life Is But A Hiding Of Ourselves From Each Other Behind A Screen Of Trivial Words And Deeds, And Those Who Sit With Us At The Same Hearth, Are Often The Farthest Off From The Deep Human Soul Within Us, Full Of Unspoken Evil And Unacted Good.

The Most Powerful Movement Of Feeling With A Liturgy Is The Prayer Which Seeks For Nothing Special, But Is A Yearning To Escape From The Limitations Of Our Own Weakness And An Invocation Of All Good To Enter And Abide With Us.

Joy And Sorrow Are Both My Perpetual Companions, But The Joy Is Called Past And The Sorrow Present.

In The Man Whose Childhood Has Known Caresses And Kindness, There Is Always A Fiber Of Memory That Can Be Touched To Gentle Issues.

And Certainly, The Mistakes That We Male And Female Mortals Make When We Have Our Own Way Might Fairly Raise Some Wonder That We Are So Fond Of It.

I Will To Make Life Less Bitter For A Few Within My Reach.

A Perverted Moral Judgment Belongs To The Dogmatic System.

You Have Such Strong Words At Command, That They Make The Smallest Argument Seem Formidable.

... Learning To Love Any One Is Like An Increase Of Property, -- It Increases Care, And Brings Many New Fears Lest Precious Things Should Come To Harm.

Precious Things

I Have Nothing To Tell Except Travellers' Stories, Which Are Always Tiresome, Like The Description Of A Play Which Was Very Exciting To Those Who Saw It.

Where Women Love Each Other, Men Learn To Smother Their Mutual Dislike.

When We Are Suddenly Released From An Acute Absorbing Bodily Pain, Our Heart And Senses Leap Out In New Freedom; We Think Even The Noise Of Streets Harmonious, And Are Ready To Hug The Tradesman Who Is Wrapping Up Our Change.

When One Wanted One's Interests Looking After Whatever The Cost, It Was Not So Well For A Lawyer To Be Over Honest, Else He Might Not Be Up To Other People's Tricks.

It Is Always Chilling, In Friendly Intercourse, To Say You Have No Opinion To Give.

Human Longings Are Perversely Obstinate; And To The Man Whose Mouth Is Watering For A Peach, It Is Of No Use To Offer The Largest Vegetable Marrow.

If Art Does Not Enlarge Men's Sympathies, It Does Nothing Morally.

Jealousy Is Never Satisfied With Anything Short Of An Omniscience That Would Detect The Subtlest Fold Of The Heart.

The Worst Service, I Fancy, That Anyone Can Do For Truth, Is To Set Silly People Writing On Its Behalf.

Well, Well, My Boy, If Good Luck Knocks At Your Door, Don't You Put Your Head Out At Window And Tell It To Be Gone About Its Business, That's All.

The Tendency Toward Good In Human Nature Has A Force Which No Creed Can Utterly Counteract, And Which Insures The Ultimate Triumph Of That Tendency Over All Dogmatic Perversions.

Deeds Are The Pulse Of Time, His Beating Life, And Righteous Or Unrighteous, Being Done, Must Throb In After-throbs Till Time Itself Be Laid In Stillness, And The Universe Quiver And Breathe Upon No Mirror More.

News Is Often Dispersed As Thoughtlessly And Effectively As That Pollen Which The Bees Carry Off (having No Idea How Powdery They Are) When They Are Buzzing In Search Of Their Particular Nectar.

It’s Rather A Strong Check To One’s Self-complacency To Find How Much Of One’s Right Doing Depends On Not Being In Want Of Money.

The Last Refuge Of Intolerance Is In Not Tolerating The Intolerant.

There Is No Human Being Who Having Both Passions And Thoughts Does Not Think In Consequences Of His Passions--does Not Find Images Rising In His Mind Which Soothe The Passion With Hope Or Sting It With Dread.

The Stars Are Golden Fruit Upon A Tree All Out Of Reach.

Many An Irritating Fault, Many An Unlovely Oddity, Has Come Of A Hard Sorrow.

There Is Much Pain That Is Quite Noiseless; And Vibrations That Make Human Agonies Are Often A Mere Whisper In The Roar Of Hurrying Existence.

I Am Feeling Easy Now, And You Will Well Understand That After Undergoing Pain This Ease Is Opening Paradise. Invalids Must Be Excused For Being Eloquent About Themselves.

So Much Of Our Early Gladness Vanishes Utterly From Our Memory: We Can Never Recall The Joy With Which We Laid Our Heads On Our Mother's Bosom Or Rode On Our Father's Back In Childhood; Doubtless That Joy Is Wrought Up Into Our Nature, As The Sunlight Of Long-past Mornings Is Wrought Up In The Soft Mellowness Of The Apricot; But It Is Gone Forever From Our Imagination, And We Can Only Believe In The Joy Of Childhood.

There Was No Gleam, No Shadow, For The Heavens, Too, Were One Still, Pale Cloud; No Sound Or Motion In Anything But The Dark River That Flowed And Moaned Like An Unresting Sorrow.

A Man Falling Into Dark Waters Seeks A Momentary Footing Even On Sliding Stones.

But Certain Winds Will Make Men's Temper Bad.

Love Is Frightened At The Intervals Of Insensibility And Callousness That Encroach By Little And Little On The Domain Of Grief, And It Makes Efforts To Recall The Keenness Of The First Anguish.

A Woman's Lot Is Made For Her By The Love She Accepts.

Sane People Did What Their Neighbors Did, So That If Any Lunatics Were At Large, One Might Know And Avoid Them.

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But Also To Be Told I Am Loved.

To See An Enemy Humiliated Gives A Certain Contentment, But This Is Jejune Compared With The Highly Blent Satisfaction Of Seeing Him Humiliated By Your Benevolent Action Or Concession On His Behalf. That Is The Sort Of Revenge Which Falls Into The Scale Of Virtue.

The Floods Of Nonsense Printed In The Form Of Critical Opinions Seem To Me A Chief Curse Of The Times, A Chief Obstacle To True Culture.

Conscientious People Are Apt To See Their Duty In That Which Is The Most Painful Course.

Pride Helps Us; And Pride Is Not A Bad Thing When It Only Urges Us To Hide Our Own Hurts—not To Hurt Others.

You Must Love Your Work And Not Always Be Looking Over The Edge Of It Wanting Your Play To Begin.

The Law And Medicine Should Be Very Serious Professions To Undertake, Should They Not? People's Lives And Fortunes Depend On Them.

Some Gentlemen Have Made An Amazing Figure In Literature By General Discontent With The Universe As A Trap Of Dulness Into Which Their Great Souls Have Fallen By Mistake; But The Sense Of A Stupendous Self And An Insignificant World May Have Its Consolations. Lydgate's Discontent Was Much Harder To Bear; It Was The Sense That There Was A Grand Existence In Thought And Effective Action Lying Around Him, While His Self Was Being Narrowed Into The Miserable Isolation Of Egoistic Fears, And Vulgar Anxieties For Events That Might Allay Such Fears.

Acting Is Nothing More Or Less Than Playing. The Idea Is To Humanize Life.

It Is Better Sometimes Not To Follow Great Reformers Of Abuses Beyond The Threshold Of Their Homes.

There Is Hardly Any Mental Misery Worse Than That Of Having Our Own Serious Phrases, Our Own Rooted Beliefs, Caricatured By A Charlatan Or A Hireling.

What Believer Sees A Disturbing Omission Or Infelicity? The Text, Whether Of Prophet Or Of Poet, Expands For Whatever We Can Put Into It, And Even His Bad Grammar Is Sublime.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Can't Use It? An Unfecundated Egg, Which The Waves Of Time Wash Away Into Nonentity.

When You See Fair Hair Be Pitiful.

... The Majority Of Us Scarcely See More Distinctly The Faultiness Of Our Own Conduct Than The Faultiness Of Our Own Arguments, Orthe Dulness [sic] Of Our Own Jokes.

It's A Father's Duty To Give His Sons A Fine Chance.

Our Deeds Are Fetters That We Forge Ourselves.

Speech Is Often Barren; But Silence Also Does Not Necessarily Brood Over A Full Nest.

The Select Natures Who Pant After The Ideal, And Find Nothing In Pantaloons Or Petticoats Great Enough To Command Their Reverence And Love, Are Curiously In Unison With The Narrowest And Pettiest.

My Childhood Was Full Of Deep Sorrows - Colic, Whooping-cough, Dread Of Ghosts, Hell, Satan, And A Deity In The Sky Who Was Angry When I Ate Too Much Plumcake.

No Man Is Matriculated To The Art Of Life Till He Has Been Well Tempted.

It Is Time The Clergy Are Told That Thinking Men, After A Close Examination Of That Doctrine, Pronounce It To Be Subversive Of True Moral Development And, Therefore, Positively Noxious.

For Character Too Is A Process And An Unfolding. . . Among Our Valued Friends Is There Not Someone Or Other Who Is A Little Too Self Confident And Disdainful. . . .

It Is Never Too Late To Be Who You Want To Be.

It Is Not Ignoble To Feel That The Fuller Life Which A Sad Experience Has Brought Us Is Worth Our Personal Share Of Pain. The Growth Of Higher Feeling Within Us Is Like The Growth Of Faculty, Bringing With It A Sense Of Added Strength. We Can No More Wish To Return To A Narrower Sympathy Than Painters Or Musicians Can Wish To Return To Their Cruder Manner, Or Philosophers To Their Less Complete Formulas.

... Goodness Is Of A Modest Nature, Easily Discouraged, And When Much Elbowed In Early Life By Unabashed Vices, Is Apt To Retire Into Extreme Privacy, So That It Is More Easily Believed In By Those Who Construct A Selfish Old Gentleman Theoretically, Than By Those Who Form The Narrower Judgments Based On His Personal Acquaintance.

Folks As Have No Mind To Be O' Use Have Allays The Luck To Be Out O' The Road When There's Anything To Be Done.

Among The Blessings Of Love There Is Hardly One More Exquisite Than The Sense That In Uniting The Beloved Life To Ours We Can Watch Over Its Happiness, Bring Comfort Where Hardship Was, And Over Memories Of Privation And Suffering Open The Sweetest Fountains Of Joy.

Blessed Influence Of One True Loving Human Soul On Another! Not Calculable By Algebra, Not Deducible By Logic, But Mysterious, Effectual, Mighty As The Hidden Process By Which The Tiny Seed Is Quickened, And Bursts Forth Into Tall Stem And Broad Leaf, And Glowing Tasseled Flower.

Our Dead Are Never Dead To Us, Until We Have Forgotten Them.

Self-consciousness Of The Manner Is The Expensive Substitute For Simplicity.

Memory, When Duly Impregnated With Ascertained Facts, Is Sometimes Surprisingly Fertile.

It Is The Way With Half The Truth Amidst Which We Live, That It Only Haunts Us And Makes Dull Pulsations That Are Never Born Into Sound.

Two Angels Guide The Path Of Man, Both Aged And Yet Young. As Angels Are, Ripening Through Endless Years, On One He Leans: Some Call Her Memory, And Some Tradition; And Her Voice Is Sweet, With Deep Mysterious Accords: The Other, Floating Above, Holds Down A Lamp With Streams A Light Divine And Searching On The Earth, Compelling Eyes And Footsteps. Memory Yields, Yet Clings With Loving Check, And Shines Anew, Reflecting All The Rays Of That Bright Lamp Our Angel Reason Holds. We Had Not Walked But For Tradition; We Walk Evermore To Higher Paths By Brightening Reason's Lamp.

Blameless People Are Always The Most Exasperating.

The First Sense Of Mutual Love Excludes Other Feelings; It Will Have The Soul All To Itself.

People Are Almost Always Better Than Their Neighbors Think They Are.

There Is No Sense Of Ease Like The Ease We Felt In Those Scenes Where We Were Born.

Even Those Who Call Themselves 'intimate' Know Very Little About Each Other - Hardly Ever Know Just How A Sorrow Is Felt, And Hurt Each Other By Their Very Attempts At Sympathy Or Consolation. We Can Bear No Hand On Our Bruises.

What Is Better Than To Love And Live With The Loved? -- But That Must Sometimes Bring Us To Live With The Dead; And This Too Turns At Last Into A Very Tranquil And Sweet Tie, Safe From Change And Injury.

To My Thinking, It Is More Pitiable To Bore Than To Be Bored.

There Is One Order Of Beauty Which Seems Made To Turn Heads. It Is A Beauty Like That Of Kittens, Or Very Small Downy Ducks Making Gentle Rippling Noises With Their Soft Bills, Or Babies Just Beginning To Toddle.

Resolve Will Melt No Rocks. But It Can Scale Them.

Time, Like Money, Is Measured By Our Needs.

In Old Days There Were Angels Who Came And Took Men By The Hand And Led Them Away From The City Of Destruction. We See No White-winged Angels Now. But Yet Men Are Led Away From Threatening Destruction: A Hand Is Put Into Theirs, Which Leads Them Forth Gently Towards A Calm And Bright Land, So That They Look No More Backward; And The Hand May Be A Little Child's.

There's Good Chances And Bad Chances, And Nobody's Luck Is Pulled Only By One String.

Deep, Unspeakable Suffering May Well Be Called A Baptism, A Regeneration, The Initiation Into A New State. Suffering Can Be Likened To A Baptism - The Passing Over The Threshold Of Pain And Grief And Anguish To Claim A New State Of Being.

The Best Part Of A Woman's Love Is Worship; But It Is Hard To Her To Be Sent Away With Her Precious Spikenard Rejected, And Her Long Tresses, Too, That Were Let Fall, Ready To Soothe The Wearied Feet.

Perhaps Nothing Ud Be A Lesson To Us If It Didn't Come Too Late. It's Well We Should Feel As Life's A Reckoning We Can't Make Twice Over; There's No Real Making Amends In This World, Any More Nor You Can Mend A Wrong Subtraction By Doing Your Addition Right.

Life Seems To Go On Without Effort When I Am Filled With Music.

It Is Always Good To Know, If Only In Passing, Charming Human Beings. It Refreshes One Like Flowers And Woods And Clear Brooks.

My Books Don't Seem To Belong To Me After I Have Once Written Them; And I Find Myself Delivering Opinions About Them As If I Had Nothing To Do With Them.

The Years Seem To Rush By Now, And I Think Of Death As A Fast Approaching End Of A Journey-double And Treble Reason For Loving As Well As Working While It Is Day.

Of New Acquaintances One Can Never Be Sure Because One Likes Them One Day That It Will Be So The Next. Of Old Friends One Is Sure That It Will Be The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.

A Proud Heart And A Lofty Mountain Are Never Fruitful.

The Tale Of The Divine Pity Was Never Yet Believed From Lips That Were Not Felt To Be Moved By Human Pity.

God, Immortality, Duty - How Inconceivable The First, How Unbelievable The Second, How Peremptory And Absolute The Third.

History, We Know, Is Apt To Repeat Itself.

The Soul Of Man, When It Gets Fairly Rotten, Will Bear You All Sorts Of Poisonous Toad-stools, And No Eye Can See Whence Came The Seed Thereof.

What Are A Handful Of Reasonable Men Against A Crowd With Stones In Their Hands?

It Is Difficult For Woman To Try To Be Anything Good When She Is Not Believed In.

I Tell You There Isn't A Thing Under The Sun That Needs To Be Done At All, But What A Man Can Do Better Than A Woman, Unless It's Bearing Children, And They Do That In A Poor Make-shift Way; It Had Better Ha Been Left To The Men.

Perhaps The Most Delightful Friendships Are Those In Which There Is Much Agreement, Much Disputation, And Yet More Personal Liking.

Life Is Too Precious To Be Spent In This Weaving And Unweaving Of False Impressions, And It Is Better To Live Quietly Under Some Degree Of Misrepresentation Than To Attempt To Remove It By The Uncertain Process Of Letter-writing.

In The Schoolroom Her Quick Mind Had Taken Readily That Strong Starch Of Unexplained Rules And Disconnected Facts Which Saves Ignorance From Any Painful Sense Of Limpness.

Consequences Are Unpitying. Our Deeds Carry Their Terrible Consequences, Quite Apart From Any Fluctuations That Went Before—consequences That Are Hardly Ever Confined To Ourselves. And It Is Best To Fix Our Minds On That Certainty, Instead Of Considering What May Be The Elements Of Excuse For Us.

It Was One Of Those Dangerous Moments When Speech Is At Once Sincere And Deceptive - When Feeling, Rising High Above Its Average Depth, Leaves Flood-marks Which Are Never Reached Again.

I've Seen Pretty Clear, Ever Since I Was A Young Un, As Religion's Something Else Besides Notions. It Isn't Notions Sets People Doing The Right Things--it's Feelings. It's The Same With The Notions In Religion As It Is With Math'matics--a Man May Be Able To Work Problems Straight Off In's Head As He Sits By The Fire And Smokes His Pipe; But If He Has To Make A Machine Or A Building, He Must Have A Will And A Resolution, And Love Something Else Better Than His Own Ease.

I Take A Dose Of Mathematics Every Day To Prevent My Brain From Becoming Quite Soft.

Surely There Was Something Taught Her By This Experience Of Great Need; And She Must Be Learning A Secret Of Human Tenderness And Long-suffering, That The Less Erring Could Hardly Know?

O The Anguish Of That Thought That We Can Never Atone To Our Dead For The Stinted Affection We Gave Them, For The Light Answers We Returned To Their Plaints Or Their Pleadings, For The Little Reverence We Showed To That Sacred Human Soul That Lived So Close To Us, And Was The Divinest Thing God Had Given Us To Know!

I Found It Better For My Soul To Be Humble Before The Mysteries O' God's Dealings, And Not Be Making A Clatter About What I Could Never Understand.

We Long For An Affection Altogether Ignorant Of Our Faults. Heaven Has Accorded This To Us In The Uncritical Canine Attachment.

Vague Memories Hang About The Mind Like Cobwebs.

Truth Has Rough Flavours If We Bite It Through.

Shepperton Church Was A Very Different Looking Building Five-and-twenty Years Ago. To Be Sure, Its Substantial Stone Tower Looks At You Through Its Intelligent Eye, The Clock, With The Friendly Expression Of Former Days; But In Everything Else What Changes!

What A Different Result One Gets By Changing The Metaphor!

Awful Night! Ancestral Mystery Of Mysteries.

There Is No Sorrow I Have Thought More About Than That-to Love What Is Great, And Try To Reach It, And Yet To Fail.

There Is No Killing The Suspicion That Deceit Has Once Begotten.

I Flutter All Ways, And Fly In None.

Starting A Long Way Off The True Point, And Proceeding By Loops And Zigzags , We Now And Then Arrive Just Where We Ought To Be.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had No Childhood In It If It Were Not The Earth Where The Same Flowers Come Up Again Every Spring That We Used To Gather With Our Tiny Fingers As We Sat Lisping To Ourselves On The Grass . . .

There Is No Despair So Absolute As That Which Comes With The First Moments Of Our First Great Sorrow, When We Have Not Yet Known What It Is To Have Suffered And Be Healed, To Have Despaired And Have Recovered Hope.

Among All Forms Of Mistake, Prophecy Is The Most Gratuitous.

To Think Of The Part One Little Woman Can Play In The Life Of A Man, So That To Renounce Her May Be A Very Good Imitation Of Heroism, And To Win Her May Be A Discipline.

...there's Never A Garden In All The Parish But What There's Endless Waste In It For Want O' Somebody As Could Use Everything Up. It's What I Think To Myself Sometimes, As There Need Nobody Run Short O' Victuals If The Land Was Made The Most On, And There Was Never A Morsel But What Could Find It's Way To A Mouth.

Brothers Are So Unpleasant.

In Poor Rosamond's Mind There Was Not Room Enough For Luxuries To Look Small In.

If I Could Only Fancy Myself Clever, It Would Be Better, But To Be A Failure Of Nature And To Know It Is Not A Comfortable Lot. It Is The Last Lesson One Learns, To Be Contented With One's Inferiority -- But It Must Be Learned.

If We Need A True Conception Of The Popular Character To Guide Our Sympathies Rightly, We Need It Equally To Check Our Theories, And Direct Us In Their Application.

Souls Live On In Perpetual Echoes.

Her Little Butterfly Soul Fluttered Incessantly Between Memory And Dubious Expectation.

These Gems Have Life In Them: Their Colors Speak, Say What Words Fail Of.

A Woman Dictates Before Marriage In Order That She May Have An Appetite For Submission Afterwards.

All The Learnin' My Father Ever Paid For Was A Bit O' Birch At One End And The Alphabet At Th ' Other.

Whatever May Be The Success Of My Stories, I Shall Be Resolute In Preserving My Incognito, Having Observed That A Nom De Plume Secures All The Advantages Without The Disagreeables Of Reputation.

Family Likeness Has Often A Deep Sadness In It.

How Oft Review; Each Finding, Like A Friend, Something To Blame, And Something To Commend.

A Prig Is A Fellow Who Is Always Making You A Present Of His Opinions.

It Is As Useless To Fight Against The Interpretations Of Ignorance As To Whip The Fog.

Appearances Have Very Little To Do With Happiness.

History, We Know, Is Apt To Repeat Itself, And To Foist Very Old Incidents Upon Us With Only A Slight Change Of Costume.

That's What A Man Wants In A Wife, Mostly; He Wants To Make Sure One Fool Tells Him He's Wise.

I Like Breakfast-time Better Than Any Other Moment In The Day. No Dust Has Settled On One's Mind Then, And It Presents A Clear Mirror To The Rays Of Things.

Your Dunce Who Can't Do His Sums Always Has A Taste For The Infinite.

Loquacity With Tongue Or Pen Is Its Own Reward -- Or, Punishment.

The Mother's Love Is At First An Absorbing Delight, Blunting All Other Sensibilities; It Is An Expansion Of The Animal Existence.

But, Bless Us, Things May Be Lovable That Are Not Altogether Handsome, I Hope?

We Mortals, Men And Women, Devour Many A Disappointment Between Breakfast And Dinner-time; Keep Back The Tears And Look A Little Pale About The Lips, And In Answer To Inquiries Say, "oh, Nothing!" Pride Helps; And Pride Is Not A Bad Thing When It Only Urges Us To Hide Our Hurts— Not To Hurt Others.

An Ingenious Web Of Probabilities Is The Surest Screen A Wise Man Can Place Between Himself And The Truth.

Who Can Prove Wit To Be Witty When With Deeper Ground Dulness Intuitive Declares Wit Dull?

Nature Repairs Her Ravages, But Not All. The Uptorn Trees Are Not Rooted Again; The Parted Hills Are Left Scarred; If There Is A New Growth, The Trees Are Not The Same As The Old, And The Hills Underneath Their Green Vesture Bear The Marks Of The Past Rending. To The Eyes That Have Dwelt On The Past, There Is No Thorough Repair.

The Human Heart Finds Nowhere Shelter But In Human Kind.

It Is Necessary To Me, Not Simply To Be But To Utter, And I Require Utterance Of My Friends.

... We Are Most Of Us Brought Up In The Notion That The Highest Motive For Not Doing A Wrong Is Something Irrespective Of The Beings Who Would Suffer The Wrong.

I Have The Conviction That Excessive Literary Production Is A Social Offence.

There's Many A Good Bit O' Work Done With A Sad Heart.

Trouble Comes To Us All In This Life: We Set Our Hearts On Things Which It Isn't God's Will For Us To Have, And Then We Go Sorrowing.

Hobbies Are Apt To Run Away With Us, You Know; It Doesn't Do To Be Run Away With. We Must Keep The Reins.

And We Must Learn To Accommodate Ourselves To The Discovery That Some Of Those Cunningly-fashioned Instruments Called Human Souls Have Only A Very Limited Range Of Music, And Will Not Vibrate In The Least Under A Touch That Fills Others With Tremulous Rapture Or Quivering Agony.

Ingenious Philosophers Tell You, Perhaps, That The Great Work Of The Steam-engine Is To Create Leisure For Mankind. Do Not Believe Them; It Only Creates A Vacuum For Eager Thought To Rush In.

I Am Not Magnanimous Enough To Like People Who Speak To Me Without Seeming To See Me

Beauty Is Part Of The Finished Language By Which Goodness Speaks.

Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down.

I Used To Come From The Village With All That Dirt And Coarse Ugliness Like A Pain Within Me, And The Simpering Pictures In The Drawing-room Seemed To Me Like A Wicked Attempt To Find Delight In What Is False, While We Don't Mind How Hard The Truth Is For The Neighbors Outside Our Walls. I Think We Have No Right To Come Forward And Urge Wider Changes For Good, Until We Have Tried To Alter The Evils Which Lie Under Our Own Hands.

People Who Write Finely Must Not Expect To Be Left In Repose; They Will Be Molested With Thanks, At Least.

I Shall Be So Glad If You Will Tell Me What To Read. I Have Been Looking Into All The Books In The Library At Offendene, But There Is Nothing Readable. The Leaves All Stick Together And Smell Musty. I Wish I Could Write Books To Amuse Myself, As You Can! How Delightful It Must Be To Write Books After One's Own Taste Instead Of Reading Other People's! Home-made Books Must Be So Nice.

No One Who Has Ever Known What It Is To Lose Faith In A Fellow-man Whom He Has Profoundly Loved And Reverenced, Will Lightly Say That The Shock Can Leave The Faith In The Invisible Goodness Unshaken. With The Sinking Of High Human Trust, The Dignity Of Life Sinks Too; We Cease To Believe In Our Own Better Self, Since That Also Is Part Of The Common Nature Which Is Degraded In Our Thought; And All The Finer Impulses Of The Soul Are Dulled.

Self-confidence Is Apt To Address Itself To An Imaginary Dullness In Others; As People Who Are Well Off Speak In A Cajoling Tone To The Poor.

Self Confidence

Ah, I Often Think It's Wi' Th' Old Folks As It Is Wi' The Babies; They're Satisfied Wi' Looking, No Matter What They're Looking At. It's God A'mighty's Way O' Quietening 'em, I Reckon, Afore They Go To Sleep.

We Have All Our Secret Sins; And If We Knew Ourselves We Should Not Judge Each Other Harshly.

No Evil Dooms Us Hopelessly Except The Evil We Love, And Desire To Continue In, And Make No Effort To Escape From.

And When A Woman's Will Is As Strong As The Man's Who Wants To Govern Her, Half Her Strength Must Be Concealment.

Few Things Hold The Perception More Thoroughly Captive Than Anxiety About What We Have Got To Say

A Common Fallacy: To Imagine A Measure Will Be Easy Because We Have Private Motives For Desiring It.

It Is Easy To Say How We Love New Friends, And What We Think Of Them, But Words Can Never Trace Out All The Fibers That Knit Us To The Old.

A Foreman, If He's Got A Conscience, And Delights In His Work, Will Do His Business As Well As If He Was A Partner. I Wouldn't Give A Penny For A Man As 'ud Drive A Nail In Slack Because He Didn't Get Extra Pay For It.

The Memory Has As Many Moods As The Temper, And Shifts Its Scenery Like A Diorama.

If We Had A Keen Vision And Feeling Of All Ordinary Human Life, It Would Be Like Hearing The Grass Grow And The Squirrel's Heart Beat, And We Should Die Of That Roar Which Lies On The Other Side Of Silence.

The Prevarication And White Lies Which A Mind That Keeps Itself Ambitiously Pure Is As Uneasy Under As A Great Artist Under The False Touches That No Eye Detects But His Own, Are Worn As Lightly As Mere Trimmings When Once The Actions Have Become A Lie.

Perfect Love Has A Breath Of Poetry Which Can Exalt The Relations Of The Least-instructed Human Beings.

There Is A Sort Of Human Paste That When It Comes Near The Fire Of Enthusiasm Is Only Baked Into Harder Shape.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had Had No Childhood In It.

Science Is Properly More Scrupulous Than Dogma. Dogma Gives A Charter To Mistake, But The Very Breath Of Science Is A Contest With Mistake, And Must Keep The Conscience Alive.

It's No Use Filling Your Pocket With Money If You Have Got A Hole In The Corner.

It Is A Wonderful Subduer, This Need Of Love-this Hunger Of The Heart-as Peremptory As That Other Hunger By Which Nature Forces Us To Submit To The Yoke, And Change The Face Of The World.

When God Makes His Presence Felt Through Us, We Are Like The Burning Bush: Moses Never Took Any Heed What Sort Of Bush It Was—he Only Saw The Brightness Of The Lord.

"abroad," That Large Home Of Ruined Reputations.

Some Folks' Tongues Are Like The Clocks As Run On Strikin', Not To Tell You The Time O' The Day, But Because There's Summat Wrong I' Their Own Inside.

Most Of Us Who Turn To Any Subject We Love Remember Some Morning Or Evening Hour When We Got On A High Stool To Reach Down An Untried Volume, Or Sat With Parted Lips Listening To A New Talker, Or For Very Lack Of Books Began To Listen To The Voices Within, As The First Traceable Beginning Of Our Love.

Dear Friends All, A Thousand Christmas Pleasures And Blessings To You -- Good Resolutions And Bright Hopes For The New Year! Amen. People Who Can't Be Witty Exert Themselves To Be Pious Or Affectionate.

I Shall Never Love Anybody. I Can't Love People. I Hate Them.' 'the Time Will Come, Dear, The Time Will Come.

It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

No Great Deed Is Done By Falterers Who Ask For Certainty.

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