“A comma . . . catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling, and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table.”

“The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.”

“Life will follow the path it started upon, and will neither reverse nor check its course; it will make no noise, it will not remind you of its swiftness. Silent it will glide on; it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the applause of the populace. Just as it was started on its first day, so it will run; nowhere will it turn aside, nowhere will it delay.”

“life could have been different if the meetings which have decided its course had been less silent, superficial or routine, if more thoughts had been exchanged, if humanity had been more able to show itself in them”

“While she lay there with these old worn thoughts coming obediently into her mind, called there by habit and the familiar quiet of early morning, she was aware that at the back of her mind there was another thought that was not at all stale, but so fresh that it was nearly a feeling, with all a feeling's delicious power to kill thought.”

“Now an extraordinary and helpful fact is that by making Mind the object of our attention, not only does the serenity which is its nature begin to well up of its own accord but its steady unchanging character itself helps spontaneously to repel all disturbing thoughts.”