The sense of an entailed disadvantage - the deformed foot doubtfully hidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and easily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite.

Letter-writing I imagine is counted as 'work' from which you must abstain, and I scribble this letter simply from the self-satisfied notion that you will like to hear from me. You see, I have asked no questions, which are the torture-screws of correspondence. Hence you have nothing to answer.

To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline.

A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.

Genius ... is necessarily intolerant of fetters.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.