If young women were not deceived into a belief that affectation pleases, they would scarcely trouble themselves to practise it so much.

Those who are animated by hope can perform what would seem impossibilities to those who are under the depressing influence of fear.

I find the love of garden grows upon me as I grow older more and more. Shrubs and flowers and such small gay things, that bloom and please and fade and wither and are gone and we care not for them, are refreshing interests, in life, and if we cannot say never fading pleasures, we may say unreproved pleasures and never grieving losses.

Promises are dangerous things to ask or to give.

sometimes the very faults of parents produce a tendency to opposite virtues in their children.

I ... practiced all the arts of apology, evasion, and invisibility, to which procrastinators must sooner or later be reduced.

It is quite fitting that charity should begin at home ... but then it should not end at home; for those that help nobody will find none to help them in time of need.