“The palace is not safe, when the cottage is not happy.”

“Cleon hath a million acres,— ne’er a one have I;
Cleon dwelleth in a palace, — in a cottage I.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.”

“Petty souls are more susceptible to ambition than great ones, just as straw or thatched cottages burn more easily than palaces.”

“You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. (Quoted by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity)”

“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand;
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”

“When they and Venus to his cottage came,
For lust-rewards prefer'd the Cyprian dame.”

“Once you're truly happy with yourself alone, that's when you are safe to find the right person to spend the rest of your life with.”

“Happiness is like those palaces in fairytales whose gates are guarded by dragons: We must fight in order to conquer it.”

“A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.”