David Grayson, pseudonym of Ray Stannard Baker

What a convenient and delightful world is this world of books! - If you bring to it not the obligation of the student, or look upon it as an opiate for idleness, but enter it rather with the enthusiasm of the adventurer!

The other day a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. "Why," I answered without a thought, "now."

Of all obstacles to that complete democracy of which we dream, is there a greater than property?

Happiness, she loves to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self sacrifice. She will be found not is palaces but lurking in cornfields and factories; and hovering over littered desks; she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child.

Happiness is a rebound from hard work. One of the follies of man is to assume that he can enjoy mere emotion. As well try to eat beauty. Happiness must be tricked. She loves to see men work. She loves sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will not be found in the palaces, but lurking in cornfields and factories, and hovering over littered desks. She crowns the unconscious head of the busy child.

A fine thought, to become poetry, must be seasoned in the upper warm garrets of the mind for long and long, then it must be brought down and slowly carved in to words, shaped with emotion, polished with love.

Adventure is not outside; it is within.

All times are great exactly in proportion as men feel, profoundly, their indebtedness to something or other... A feeling of immeasurable obligation puts life into a man and fight into him, and joy into him.

Back of tranquillity lies always conquered unhappiness.

Goodness is uneventful. It does not flash, it glows.

How sweet an emotion is possession! What charm is inherent in ownership! What a foundation for vanity, even for the greater quality of self-respect, lies in a little property!

Human happiness is the true odour of growth, the sweet exhalation of work.