"A garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with one's personal history and that of one's friends, interwoven with one's tastes, preferences, and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withal manifest autobiography. Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like."

"No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it."

"Once learn how Nature gardens for herself, and you will be able to spare yourself a good deal of trouble."

"[T]here is no gardening without humility, an assiduous willingness to learn, and a cheerful readiness to admit that you were mistaken. Nature is continually sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder."

"Imagination should A reconciler, not a rebel, be, To teach the heart of man to apprehend Nature's vicissitudes, and bear his own, With sympathetic fancy."

"When the foal and broodmare hinny, And in every cut-down spinney Ladysmocks grow mauve and mauver, Then the winter days are over"

"Why should you, Because the world is foolish, not be wise?"

"There is no office in this needful world But dignifies the doer if done well."

"The Devil is an echo Of search unsatisfied."

"Towns can be trusted to corrupt themselves."

"'Tis a world Where all is bought, and nothing's worth the price."

"Of all our feigned affections, there is none So hollow, selfish, and injurious, As what we christen Patriotism."

"He is dead already who doth not feel Life is worth living still."

"So long as Faith with Freedom reigns And loyal Hope survives, And gracious Charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For Intellect or Will, And men are free to think and act, Life is worth living still."

"Is life worth living? Yes, so long As there is wrong to right, Wail of the weak against the strong, Or tyranny to fight;"

"Is life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year, And hails us with the cuckoo's song, To show that she is here;"

"Who once believed will never wholly doubt."

"Who once has doubted never quite believes."

"Public opinion is no more than this, What people think that other people think."

"Death is master of lord and clown. Close the coffin and hammer it down."

"Omit death's certain sharpness, life would lack The salt that lends it savour."

"Let Will but set its appetite on war, And Reason will promptly invent offence, And furnish blood with arguments."

"Love and naughtiness are always in their teens."

"O thou sophist, Man! Reason by reason proved unreasonable Continues reasoning still! Confronted close, What is this reason? Like the peacock's tail, Just useful for a flourish, nothing more; And when 'tis down, the world goes on the same."

"In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile."

"If Nature built by rule and square, Than man what wiser would she be? What wins us is her careless care, And sweet unpunctuality."

"Doth Nature draw me, 'tis because, Unto my seeming, there doth lurk A lawlessness about her laws, More mood than purpose in her work."

"Why from the plain truth should I shrink? In woods men feel; in towns they think. Yet, which is best? Thought, stumbling, plods Past fallen temples, vanished gods, Altars unincensed, fanes undecked, Eternal systems flown or wrecked; Through trackless centuries that grant To the poor trudge refreshment scant, Age after age, pants on to find A melting mirage of the mind. But feeling never wanders far, Content to fare with things that are."

"I love the doubt, the dark, the fear, That still surroundeth all things here. I love the mystery, nor seek to solve; Content to let the stars revolve, Nor ask to have their meaning clear. Enough for me, enough to feel; To let the mystic shadows steal Into a land whither I cannot follow. To see the stealthy sunlight leave Dewy dingle, dappled hollow; To watch, when falls the hour of eve, Quiet shadows on a quiet hill; To watch, to wonder, and be still."

"My virgin sense of sound was steeped In the music of young streams; And roses through the casement peeped, And scented all my dreams."

"[…] faded smiles oft linger in the face, While grief's first flakes fall silent on the head!"

"Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry."

"So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness."

"Who loves his country never forfeits heaven."

"Never fear to weep; For tears are summer showers to the soul, To keep it fresh and green."

"[…] there is no love, That merits such high christening, but is built Firm upon some foundation out of sight; God, country, virtue, something not ourself, To which ourself is nothing, save the proof Of its invisible sureness."

"Your logic may be good, But dialectics never saved a soul."

"Death is the looking-glass of life wherein Each man may scan the aspect of his deeds."

"Friendship, 'tis said, is love without his wings, And friendship, sir, is sweet enough for me."

"Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law, Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will."

"Friendship craves The commerce of the mind, not the exchange Of emulous feasts that foster sycophants."

"Let your house Be spacious more than splendid, and be books And busts your most conspicuous furniture."

"And Clara dies that Claribel may dance."

"Lo, where huge London, huger day by day, O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway."

"Then, without toil, by vale and mountain side, Men found their few and simple wants supplied; Plenty, like dew, dropped subtle from the air, And Earth's fair gifts rose prodigal as prayer. Love, with no charms except its own to lure, Was swiftly answered by a love as pure. No need for wealth; each glittering fruit and flower, Each star, each streamlet, made the maiden's dower."

"From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than anyone has ever known it. Dickens knew its clothes and its comedy. Mr. Kipling knows its essence and its seriousness. He is our first authority on the second-rate, and has seen marvellous things through keyholes, and his backgrounds are real works of art."

"As one turns over the pages of his Plain Tales from the Hills, one feels as if one were seated under a palm-tree reading life by superb flashes of vulgarity. The bright colours of the bazaars dazzle one's eyes."

"Kipling... brought a sense of religious destiny back into a disorganized world. He was able, in fact, to render an immense service to his age, and it is no wonder that in his later years, when it became apparent that that age had passed forever,he refused to recognize the change, and raised a disgruntled pretense that nothing was happening save an outburst of misconduct on the part of the intellectuals and the lower classes. It is no wonder that he should want to do so, human nature being as frail as it is; but it is surprising that the writer of the masterpiece Kim should have found himself able to do so."