Death was not to be a leap: it was to be a long descent under thickening shadows.

Net the large fish and you are sure to have the small fry.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?

How impossible it is for strong healthy people to understand the way in which bodily malaise and suffering eats at the root of one's life! The philosophy that is true - the religion that is strength to the healthy - is constantly emptiness to one when the head is distracted and every sensation is oppressive.

The wrong that rouses our angry passions finds only a medium in us; it passes through us like a vibration, and we inflict what we have suffered.

A woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.