Certainly the determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and novel impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.

I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on my face!

To judge wisely, we must know how things appear to the unwise.

The tendency toward good in human nature has a force which no creed can utterly counteract, and which insures the ultimate triumph of that tendency over all dogmatic perversions.

Life is like our game at whist ... I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it.

the Press has no band of critics who go the round of the churches and chapels, and are on the watch for a slip or defect in the preacher, to make a 'feature' in their article: the clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.