The secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark waters of oblivion. They are out of sight, but without them no superstructure can stand secure.
Welcome, Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend. Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice of a friend. Oh, there is something sublime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without complaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success!
A spirit of criticism, if indulged in, leads to a censoriousness of disposition that is destructive of all nobler feeling. The man who lives to find faults has a miserable mission.
The things that have been and shall be no more, The things that are, and that hereafter shall be, The things that might have been, and yet were not, The fading twilight of joys departed.
More hearts are breaking in this world of ours Than one would say. In distant villages And solitudes remote, where winds have wafted The barbed seeds of love, or birds of passage Scattered them in their flight, do they take root, And grow in silence, and in silence perish.
The course of my long life hath reached at last in fragile bark over a tempestuous sea the common harbor, where must rendered be account for all the actions of the past.
Men are four;
He who knows and knows not that he knows. He is asleep; wake him.
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not. He is a fool; shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not. He is a child; teach him.
He who knows and knows that he knows. He is a king; follow him.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.