Every single one of my books had its title changed almost as we were going to press, for all sorts of different reasons.
Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.
I can remember, with unsteady feet, Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things which long Have lost their power to please; which when I see them, Raise only now a melancholy wish I were the little trifler once again, Who could be pleas'd so lightly.
Whoever has tasted the breath of morning knows that the most invigorating and most delightful hours of then day are commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of nature that we should enjoy and profit by them.
The disappointed man turns his thoughts toward a state of existence where his wiser desires may be fixed with the certainty of faith; the successful man feels that the objects which he has ardently pursued fail to satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit; the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, that he may save his soul alive.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green, The Holly leaes a sober hue display Less bright than they, But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?
O Reader! hast thou eer stood to see The Holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceies Its glossy leaes Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.
Sometimes you need to live with a painting for a while. Starting a painting can be easy, but finishing it. . . that's the skill of the painter, how you finally know when it's done.
Everything that I think is good is bad, and everything that I think is bad is good.
If it's advisable to never share own problems with others as sages say that majority don't care, then it's more sensible to never brag of own achievements as their attitude is likely to remain the same.
To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally.