Gilbert Parker

“Nothing is so unproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose.”

“For when a child is born the mother also is born again.”

“He knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech.”

“In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind.”

“She belongs to a race of delightful women, who never do any harm, whom everybody calls good, and who are very severe on those who do not pretend to be good.”

“Man is born in a day, and he dies in a day, and the thing is easily over; but to have a sick heart for three-fourths of one's lifetime is simply to have death renewed every morning; and life at that price is not worth living.”

“There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do. There's no virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted.”

“It must be remembered that the sea is a great breeder of friendship. Two men who have known each other for twenty years find that twenty days at sea bring them nearer than ever they were before, or else estrange them.”

“But paying is part of the game of life: it is the joy of buying that we crave.”

“There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance.”

“War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle.”

“Tomorrow is no man's gift.”

“There is no influence like the influence of habit.”

“He came by a leap to the goal of purpose, not by the toilsome steps of reason. On the instant his headlong spirit declared his purpose: this was the one being for him in all the world: at this altar he would light a lamp of devotion, and keep it burning forever.”

“Every man should have laws of his own, I should think; commandments of his own, for every man has a different set of circumstances wherein to work - or worry.”

“It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.”

“Memory is man's greatest friend and worst enemy.”

“Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars.”

“The real business of life is trying to understand each other.”

“It is not the broken heart that kills, but broken pride, monseigneur.”