Truth

Truth rests with God alone, and a little bit with me.

Yiddish proverb
VBA p. 76

Let us honour if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.

W. H. Auden, Frontspiece to Poems 1927-1931

The true teacher

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence.

Alcott

VBA p. 110

Mistakes

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

E. Hubbard
VBA p. 59

Happiness

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we think.

La Rochefoucauld
VBA p. 20

...or it is only gossip.

You must see the infinite, i.e., the universal, in your particular, or it is only gossip.

O. W. Holmes, Jr.
(VBA p. 339)

An open mind

An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or it may be found a little drafty.

Samuel Butler (II)
VBA p. 354