... if fiction does not show us a better life than reality, what is the good of it?

Human relations are built on feeling, not on reason or knowledge. And feeling is not an exact science; like all spiritual qualities, it has the vagueness of greatness about it.

In all troublous events we may find comfort, though it be only in the negative admission that things might have been worse.

The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much.

I have seen that every one forgives much in themselves that they find unpardonable in other people.

Kindness is always fashionable.

... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.