I think reading a novel is almost next best to having something to do.

For everybody knows that it requires very little to satisfy the gentlemen, if a woman will only give her mind to it.

The ideal is the flower-garden of the mind, and very apt to run to weeds unless carefully tended.

Next to happiness, perhaps enmity is the most healthful stimulant of the human mind.

I scarcely remember any writer who has ever ventured to say that the half of the work of the world is actually accomplished by women; and very few husbands who would be otherwise than greatly startled and amazed, if not indignant, if not derisive, at the suggestion of such an idea as that the work of their wives was equal to their own.

... I have always been a disappointment to my friends. I have no gift of talk, not much to say; and though I have always been an excellent listener, that only succeeds under auspicious circumstances.

It is often easier to justify one's self to others than to respond to the secret doubts that arise in one's own bosom.