The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all; to which nothing contributes more than industry and temperance.

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. If I were pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that my only reply could be: Because it was he, because it was I.

I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?

For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.

Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth.

There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.