I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me

I'll tell you what's the greatest power under heaven, and that is public opinion-the ruling belief in society about what is right and what is wrong, what is honourable and what is shameful. That's the steam that is to work the engines.

For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.

No anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you.

The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman and a coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference in her presence.

Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves: there are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged to sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same incongruous manner.

trouble always seems heavier when it is only one's thought and not one's bodily activity that is employed about it.