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.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

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.

It is pleasant to have a kind word now and then when one is not near enough to have a kind glance or a hearty shake by the hand.

In spite of his practical ability, some of his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations.

It is not true that love makes all things easy; it makes us choose what is difficult.

To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath.