All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise.

And why should he interest himself at all in my moral and intellectual capacities: what is it to him what I think and feel?' I asked myself. And my heart throbbed in answer to the question.

My cup of sweets is not unmingled: it is dashed with a bitterness that I cannot hide from myself, disguise it as I will.

There is always a but in this imperfect world.

There's nothing like active employment, I suppose, to console the afflicted.

All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.

You might as well sell yourself to slavery at once, as marry man you dislike.