I am light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy

How many young men, in all previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the boxes of rheumatic watchmen!

I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me.

When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded places full of life.

To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things - but not so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature.

It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster.

I confess I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not be drawn from the vilest evil.