What necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer-the Future so much brighter?

It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate.

I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is (correcting himself), I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's advance in experience.

No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by.

Life is still life, whatever its pangs; our eyes and ears and their use remain with us, though the prospect of what pleases be wholly withdrawn, and the sound of what consoles must be silenced.

Flirting is a woman’s trade, one must keep in practice.

I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing.