Lesson

"When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in humility."

--from James M. Barrie's The Little Minister

Powerful...

"Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries."

--from Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby

Take your time...

"With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes satin. With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes silk."

--Chinese proverb

Climbing...

It was a harder day's journey than yesterday's, for there were long and weary hills to climb; and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, with unabated perseverance, and the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.

--from Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby

Begin anew...

"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them--every day begin the task anew."

--Saint Francis de Sales

Mystery...

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."

--Charles Dickens

Spring fever

"It's Spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - 0h, you don't know quite what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!"

--Mark Twain