What is natural in me, is natural in many other men, I infer, and so I am not afraid to write that I never had loved Steerforth better than when the ties that bound me to him were broken. In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more towards all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

Man cannot really improve himself without improving others.

Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.

It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.

Change begets change.