But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.

It is surely better to pardon too much, than to condemn too much.

We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement.

Plain women he regarded as he did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and investigated by science.

The desire to conquer is itself a sort of subjection.

That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he's wise.

One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.