It is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

Expenditure--like ugliness and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others.

Affection is the broadest basis of a good life.

In Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures.

Better a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy than an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.

What is better than to love and live with the loved? -- But that must sometimes bring us to live with the dead; and this too turns at last into a very tranquil and sweet tie, safe from change and injury.