Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided.

Such has often been my apathy, when objects long sought, and earnestly desired, were placed within my reach.

To do nothing is the way to be nothing.

A screen... the scenery and the figures of life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribably difference, which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow, so much more attractive than the original.

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

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

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!