But she took her husband's jokes and joviality as patiently as everything else, considering that "men would be so", and viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks.

Don't judge a book by its cover

The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity.

It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent - like a carrier pigeon.

Education was almost entirely a matter of luck — usually of ill-luck — in those distant days.

But let the wise be warned against too great readiness to explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.