It is in general the unexplored that attracts us.

Stepmothers in books usually behave very spitefully towards the children entrusted to them. But he was now learning by his own experience that in real life this does not always happen.

How much the more in judging of the human heart should we distrust all fashionable airs and graces, all tricks and smartness, learnt only to please the outward gaze

You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay.

No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone.