And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is willfully to misunderstand them.

If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred and all duty violated.

I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man.

If people like to read their books, it is all very well, but to be at so much trouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used to think, nobody would willingly ever look into, to be labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls, always struck me as a hard fate.

Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can't be without.

Every savage can dance.

But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.