For there is no folly so great as keeping one's sorrows hidden.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Little bits of things make me do it; — perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago; — the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.

Of all the needs a book has the chief need is that it be readable.

Never let the estate decrease in your hands. It is only by such resolutions as that that English noblemen and English gentlemen can preserve their country. I cannot bear to see property changing hands.

If we wish ourselves to be high, we should treat that which is over us as high.

Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.