Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought.

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.

Terror of being found out is not always a preservative, it sometimes hurries on the act which it ought to prevent.

Somehow even a popular fallacy has an aspect of truth when it suits one's own case.

... 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.

Perhaps, on the whole, embarrassment and perplexity are a kind of natural accompaniment to life and movement; and it is better to be driven out of your senses with thinking which of two things you ought to do than to do nothing whatever, and be utterly uninteresting to all the world.

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