"Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits."

"You can kill the body but not the spirit."

"To be feared of a thing and yet to do it, is what makes the prettiest kind of a man."

"There is a romance about all those who are abroad in the black hours."

"Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie."

"Old and young, we are all on our last cruise."

"Make the most of the best and the least of the worst."

"Wine is bottled poetry."

"So long as we love, we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend."

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."

"I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see."

"There is no duty so much underrated as the duty of being happy."

"I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion."

"Truth in spirit, not truth to the letter, is the true veracity."

"To be honest, to be kind - to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation - above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself - here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to be successful."

"And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life."

"The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect."

"An aspiration is a joy forever a possession as solid as a landed estate a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity."

"Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life."

"To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity."

"Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things."

"Every heart that has beat strongly and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind."

"The thoughts of his mind, besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times assail the most honest."

"There are two things that men should never weary of, goodness and humility; we get none too much of them in this rough world among cold, proud people."

"I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering."

"I never drew a picture of anything that was before me but always from fancy, a sure sign of the absence of artistic eyesight; and I illustrated my lack of real feeling for art by a very early speech: 'Mama,' said I, 'I have drawed a man. Shall I draw his soul now?"

"To become what we are capable of becoming is the only end in life."

"Suicide carried off many. Drink and the devil took care of the rest."

"So long as we are loved by others I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend."

"It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive."

"It is a good thing to make a bridge of gold to a flying enemy."

"There is but one art to omit."

"So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend."

"The truth that is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the enemy."

"Wherever we are it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else and whatever we do however well we do it it is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different."

"An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding."

"Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes."

"Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies."

"Ah sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth and none or almost none for the disenchantments of age."

"It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit."

"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend."

"The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish."

"It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in retrospect."

"You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving."

"We must go on, because we can't turn back."

"To My MotherYou too, my mother, read my rhymesFor love of unforgotten times,And you may chance to hear once moreThe little feet along the floor."

"Doctors is all swabs."

"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer."

"A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right."

"A friend is a gift you give yourself."