“I magnified, as usual, the impression any word or deed of mine could produce on others.”

“Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses.”

“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.”

“If a man goes a little too far along a new road, it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else.”

“Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my preference! I never had a preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman's living.”

“O may I join the choir invisibleOf those immortal dead who live againIn minds made better by their presence; liveIn pulses stirred to generosity,In deeds of daring rectitude...”

“When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives. And we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can over other treasures.”