in came ... a baby, eloquent as infancy usually is, and like most youthful orators, more easily heard than understood.

It is amazing how much a thought expands and refines by being put into speech: I should think it could hardly know itself.

The old proverb, applied to fire and water, may with equal truth be applied to the imagination - it is a good servant, but a bad master.

A woman only can understand a woman.

Nothing but love can answer to love; no affection, no kindness, no care, can supply its place: it is its own sweet want.

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth; but it is never applied except when we wish to deceive ourselves - when if we cannot exclude the light, we would fain draw the curtain before it. The sneer springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must that state of mind be, that wishes to take refuge in doubt.

Strange mystery of our nature, that those in whom genius develops itself in imagination, thus taking its most ethereal form, should yet be the most dependent on the opinions of others!