“The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.”

“A state of affairs which leads to daily vexation is not the right state.”

“All truths are old, and all that we have to do is recognize and utter them anew.”

“It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.”

“As all Nature's thousands changes But one changeless God proclaim; So in Art's wide kingdom ranges One sole meaning still the same: This is Truth, eternal Reason, Which from Beauty takes its dress, And serene through time and season Stands aye in loveliness.”

“Like oneWho having into truth, by telling of it,Made such a sinner of his memory,To credit his own lie.”

“We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues.”

“We do what we can, and then make a theory to prove our performance the best.”

“Who says the eternal being does not exist? Who says the sun has gone out? Someone who climbs up on the roof and closes his eyes tight, and says, I don't see anything.”

“Nobody did nothin' to nobody.”

“Most of a modest woman's life was spent, after all, in denying what, in one day at least of every year, was made obvious.”

“Things are often spoke and seldom meant.”

“"Fair, kind, and true" is all my argument,"Fair, kind, and true" varying to other words;And in this change is my invention spent,Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.”

“Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown; For vice repeated is like the wand'ring wind, Blows dust in others' eye, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear To stop the air would hurt them.”