It makes a difference doesn't it, whether we fully fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?

Do you suppose there's any difference between spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.

A novel is based on evidence, + or -x, the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist, and the unknown quantity always modifies the effect of the evidence, and sometimes transforms it entirely.

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

As her time in Florence drew to a close she was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent.

The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius.

Naked I came into the world, naked I shall go out of it! And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its colour.