Quotes

Why should people ever take credit for charity when they must know that they cannot gain as much pleasure out of their guineas in any other fashion? ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle You know that he came into his uncle's money a little time ago, and after a first delirious outbreak, he has now relapsed into that dead heavy state of despair which is caused by having everything which one can wish for. How absurd are the ambitions of life when I think that I, who am fairly happy and as keen as a razor edge, should be struggling for that which I can see has brought neither profit nor happiness to him! ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle At last, however, his conversation became unbearable--a foul young man is odious, but a foul old one is surely the most sickening thing on earth. One feels that the white upon the hair, like that upon the mountain, should signify a height attained. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle What did we care, any one of the three of us, where we sat or how we lived, when youth throbbed hot in our veins, and our souls were all aflame with the possibilities of life? ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Some eighty thousand years are supposed to have existed between paleolithic and neolithic man. Yet in all that time he only learned to grind his flint stones instead of chipping them. But within our father's lives what changes have there not been? The railway and the telegraph, chloroform and applied electricity. Ten years now go further than a thousand then, not so much on account of our finer intellects as because the light we have shows us the way to more. Primeval man stumbled along with peering eyes, and slow, uncertain footsteps. Now we walk briskly towards our unknown goal. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Slate-coloured clouds with ragged fringes are drifting slowly overhead. Between them one has a glimpse of higher clouds of a lighter gray. I can hear the gentle swish of the rain striking a clearer note on the gravel path and a duller among the leaves. Sometimes it falls straight and heavy, till the air is full of the delicate gray shading, and for half a foot above the ground there is a haze from the rebound of a million tiny globules. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle We surely know by some nameless instinct more about our futures than we think we know. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle A man loses his fortune; he gains earnestness. His eyesight goes; it leads him to a spirituality. The girl loses her beauty; she becomes more sympathetic. We think we are pushing our own way bravely, but there is a great Hand in ours all the time. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle I have my own views about Nature's methods, though I feel that it is rather like a beetle giving his opinions upon the Milky Way. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Are you conscious of the restful influence which the stars exert? To me they are the most soothing things in Nature. I am proud to say that I don't know the name of one of them. The glamour and romance would pass away from them if they were all classified and ticketed in one's brain. But when a man is hot and flurried, and full of his own little ruffled dignities and infinitesimal misfortunes, then a star bath is the finest thing in the world. ~ The Stark Munro Letters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle