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.

If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you'd think I should to share those good things; but I should better to share in your trouble and your labour.

But, bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I hope?

The rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families.

Those bitter sorrows of childhood!-- when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

I don't want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money.