The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, 'Men never know when things are dirty or not;' and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, 'Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares.'

Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want.

If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?

The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know that the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing, that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence.

Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.

There is hardly any personal defect... which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to.

for he is such a disagreeable man, that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him.