The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.

Of all the events which constitute a person's biography, there is scarcely one ... to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death.

The trees reflected in the river - they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near to them. So are we.

If truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom.

There is an alchemy of quiet malice by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles.

When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtle process than the ostensible one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod-or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly-thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude.

No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike. Times change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much the worse for us.