Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.
Gems, in fact, are a species of mineral flowers; they are the blossoms of the dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume, they make up in durability.
Praise is sunshine; it warms, it inspires, it promotes growth; blame and rebuke are rain and hail; they beat down and bedraggle, even though they may at times be necessary.
Strange, what brings these past things so vividly back to us, sometimes!
My vocation to preach on paper.
It is one mark of a superior mind to understand and be influenced by the superiority of others.
Fanaticism is governed by imagination rather than judgment.
Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself.
As a writer I'm merely a journalist who has learned to write better than others.
But one type of book that practically no one likes to read is a book about the law. Books about the law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is an incentive - the word "incentive" here means "an offered reward to persuade you to do something you don't want to do - to read long, dull, and difficult books.
I find myself going out less and less. When you're 22 and see older people start to do that, it's depressing, but once you hit 30, you think, 'Wow, I've been working all week - it might be really nice to stay in!