A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment.

Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than leave it him in your will.

He who rules must fully humor as much as he commands.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

I used to come from the village with all that dirt and coarse ugliness like a pain within me, and the simpering pictures in the drawing-room seemed to me like a wicked attempt to find delight in what is false, while we don't mind how hard the truth is for the neighbors outside our walls. I think we have no right to come forward and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils which lie under our own hands.

Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another