“Being prepared means much, being able to wait means more, but to make use of the right moment means everything
“Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invaribly they are both disappointed
“No human being will ever know the truth, for even if they happened to say it by chance, they would not know they had done so.
“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week.
“I cannot stop thinking that I died before I was born and that at my death I will return to the same state
“The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another
“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game
“For life, with all its yields of joy and woe, and hope and fear, believe the aged friend, is just a chance o' the prize of learning love
“The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled
“I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me
“How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of beginnings, story without end, each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!