Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good, and turn all the places of joy as dark as a buried Babylon.

It was not that she was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands of her fine organism.

All writing seems to me worse in the state of proof than in any other form. In manuscript one's own wisdom is rather remarkable to one, but in proof it has the effect of one's private furniture repeated in the shop windows. And then there is the sense that the worst errors will go to press unnoticed!

And, of course men know best about everything, except what women know better.

I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.

Self-consciousness of the manner is the expensive substitute for simplicity.

I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate.