It is folly to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon without emotion, there are names I can never hear spoken without almost starting.

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

The smoking flax before it burst to flame Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed.

Whatever poet, orator, or sage may say of it, old age is still old age.

I am never indifferent, and never pretend to be, to what people say or think of my books. They are my children, and I like to have them liked.

There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye.

Whenever nature leaves a hole in a person's mind, she generally plasters it over with a thick coat of self-conceit.