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.

Reputation being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the Envious and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness.

whatever is morally wrong, is equally wrong in man and in woman and no virtue is to be cultivated in one sex, that is not equally required by the other.

Social opinion is like a sharp knife. There are foolish people who regard it only with terror, and dare not touch or meddle with it. There are more foolish people, who, in rashness or defiance, seize it by the blade, and get cut and mangled for their pains. And there are wise people, who grasp it discreetly and boldly by the handle, and use it to carve out their own purposes.

In every mind where there is a strong tendency to fear there is a strong capacity to hate. Those who dwell in fear dwell nest door to hate; and I think it is the cowardice of women which makes them such intense haters.

The moment in which the spirit meets death is perhaps like the moment in which it is embraced in sleep. I suppose it never happened to any one to be conscious of the immediate transition from the waking to the sleeping state.

As what we call genius arises out of the disproportionate power and size of a certain faculty, so the great difficulty lies in harmonizing with it the rest of the character.