Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

The art of pleasing is more based on the art of seeming pleased than people think of, and she disarmed the prejudices of her enemies by the unaffected delight she appeared to take in themselves.

you have not a boat of your own, that is just it; that is what women always suffer from; they have to steer, but the craft is some one else's, and the haul too.

Woman already controls by not seeming to do so. Talk no more of her rights.

There is no more terrible woe upon earth than the woe of the stricken brain, which remembers the days of its strength, the living light of its reason, the sunrise of its proud intelligence, and knows that these have passed away like a tale that is told.

Count art by gold, and it fetters the feet it once winged.

Flowers belong to Fairyland: the flowers and the birds and the butterflies are all that the world has kept of its golden age--the only perfectly beautiful things on earth--joyous, innocent, half divine--useless, say they who are wiser than God.