Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

This is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger in it.

What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?

What should I do—how should I act now, this very day . . . What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching murmur which would soon gather distinctness.

Genius ... is necessarily intolerant of fetters.

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

If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking.