I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her.

After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favourite ballads of "The Dashing White Sergeant", and "Little Tafflin".

Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.

She had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that were very pretty and very good.

Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him.

... the woman who grows up with the idea that she is simply to be an amiable animal, to be caressed and coaxed, is invariably a bitterly disappointed woman. A game of chess will cure such a conceit forever. The woman that knows the most, thinks the most, feels the most, is the most. Intellectual affection is the only lasting love. Love that has a game of chess in it can checkmate any man and solve the problem of life.

He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl.