He never could have loved me, or he would not have resigned me so willingly

A man must have something to grumble about; and if he cant complain that his wife harries him to death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears him out with her kindness and gentleness.

[Preface to second edition:] ... I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be.

There is always a but in this imperfect world.

I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of the country may be changed; but the pillar is still there, to remind me how all things were when it was reared.

What business had I to think so much of one that never thought of me?

I would not send a poor girl into the world, ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself .