A bond is necessary to complete our being, only we must be careful that the bond does not become bondage.

He that seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius: as he must needs paint for other minds, and not for his own.

In morals, what begins in fear usually ends in wickedness; in religion, what begins in fear usually ends in fanaticism. Fear, either as a principle or a motive, is the beginning of all evil.

If a superior woman marry a vulgar or inferior man, he makes her miserable, but seldom governs her mind or vulgarizes her nature; and if there be love on his side, the chances are that in the end she will elevate and refine him.

A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious.

A man may be as much a fool from the want of sensibility as the want of sense.

I have great admiration for power, a great terror of weakness, especially in my own sex, yet feel that my love is for those who overcome the mental and moral suffering and temptation through excess of tenderness rather than through excess of strength.