... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.

We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves

You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

You youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well and working easy; you've no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback.

She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception.

A girl of eighteen imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth as easily as primitive people imagined the humors of the gods in fair weather. What is she to believe in if not in this vision woven from within?

Selfish— a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.