One only says it is one's duty when one has something disagreeable to do.

Against the long years when family bonds make up all that is happiest in life, there must always be reckoned those moments of agitation and revolution, during which the bosom of a family is the most unrestful and disturbing place in existence.

There is nothing more effectual in showing us the weakness of any habitual fallacy or assumption than to hear it sympathetically through the ears, as it were, of a skeptic.

... up to this date, I have never been shut up in a separate room, or hedged off with any observances. My study, all the study I have attained to, is the little 2nd drawing room where all the (feminine) life of the house goes on; and I don't think I have ever had two hours undisturbed (except at night, when everybody is in bed) during my whole literary life.

Many love me, but by none am I enough beloved.

every generation has a conceit of itself which elevates it, in its own opinion, above that which comes after it.

Even in misery we love to be foremost, to have the bitter in our cup acknowledged as more bitter than that of others.