About the greatest virtue a friend can have, is to be able to hold her tongue; and through this, like all virtues carried to extremity, may grow into a fault, and do great harm, still, it never can do so much harm as that horrible laxity and profligacy of speech which is a the root of half the quarrels, cruelties, and injustices of the world.

the worst times come to an end if you can only wait long enough.

To have loved and lost, either by that total disenchantment which leaves compassion as the sole substitute for love which can exist no more, or by the slow torment which is obliged to let go day by day all that constitutes the diviner part of love - namely, reverence, belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the only thing left it, a long-suffering apologetic tenderness - this lot is probably the hardest any woman can have to bear.

absence ... smothers into decay a rootless fancy but often nourishes the least seed of a true affection into full-flowering love.

The life of action is nobler than the life of thought.

Every man for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost.

Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another?