There is a payment made by Nature to those who undergo hardships; it is that the lesser ones, at which people whose lives have been easier would complain, seem almost comfortable.

I felt the fear that has always come upon me on the many occasions of my life when some small incident has made me aware of an incipient insanity.

“You extend hope at one moment and snatch it away at the next.” “Not I, but history.

“And you, I think, are a good man of the kind who does not know himself to be one—some say that is the only kind.

There was nothing of that here, no ideality; and yet the house was more perfect for all its imperfection, showing that human beings might live and love in such a remote spot without the ability to shape their habitat into a poem.

so we have each of us in the dustiest cellars of our minds a counter at which we strive to repay the debts of the past with the debased currency of the present.

the progress of science depends much less upon either theoretical considerations or systematic investigation than is commonly believed, but rather on the transmittal of reliable information, gained by chance or insight, from one set of men to their successors.

I am, perhaps, mad in certain respects, but I know what those respects are, and such self-deceptions are no part of them.

“You are the advocate of the dead.” The old man nodded. “I am. People talk about being fair to this one and that one, but nobody I ever heard talks about doing right by them. We take everything they had, which is all right. And spit, most often, on their opinions, which I suppose is all right too. But we ought to remember now and then how much of