It is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings – much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born.

Life is like our game at whist ... I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it.

A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills.

She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel – that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.

There is so much to read and the days are so short! I get more hungry for knowledge every day, and less able to satisfy my hunger.