If all struggles and sufferings were eliminated, the spirit would no more reach maturity than would the child.

Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims.

She had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two.

I seek the lessons God wants to teach me, and that means that I ask why.

A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.

Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself.

The devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. He will not allow quietness.