The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style, that is the foundation of the art of literature.
Jew storekeepers have already learned the advantage to be gained from this [unlimited credit]: they lead on the farmer into irretrievable indebtedness, and keep him ever after as their bondslave hopelessly grinding in the mill.
We should wipe two words from our vocabulary: gratitude and charity. In real life, help is given out of friendship, or it is not valued; it is received from the hand of friendship, or it is resented.
Now, to be properly enjoyed, a walking tour should be gone upon alone.... Freedom is of the essence, because you should be able to stop and go on and follow this way or that as the freak takes you.... There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow to jar on the meditative silence of the morning.
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at tea-time and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.
Happiness, eternal or temporal, is not the reward that mankind seeks, Happinesses are but his wayside companions. His soul is in the journey and in the struggle.
You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you were in a fit of laughter, would go some way towards a dissolution of the marriage.
We got together in a few days a company of the toughest old salts imaginable--not pretty to look at, but fellows, by their faces, of the most indomitable spirit.
I have resolved that from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly.