... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.

I have a knack of hoping, which is as good as an estate.

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.

I should like to know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for bachelors to go out.

What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?

... the majority of us scarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than the faultiness of our own arguments, orthe dulness [sic] of our own jokes.

The intensest form of hatred is that rooted in fear.