I prepare myself for all disappointments by expecting nothing.

Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden!

We may admire people for being wise, but we like them best when they are foolish.

I do not think very highly of Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson's old stilts.

The power of admiring whatever is deserving of admiration, the nice and quick perception of the beautiful and the true, is one of the highest and noblest of our faculties, born of taste, and knowledge, and wisdom, or rather it is taste, and wisdom, and knowledge, in one rare and great combination.

Does it not appear to you versatility is the true and rare characteristic of that rare thing called genius-versatility and playfulness? In my mind they are both essential.

Prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason.