Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

They will both be happy, and I do not grudge them their bliss; but I groan under my own misery: some of my suffering is very acute. Truly, I ought not to have been born: they should have smothered me at first cry.

Your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you.

I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered, they cease to please. I look on them as things rootless and perishable; their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love; I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me.

Poverty, for me, is synonymous with degradation.

I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest -- blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.

Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive.