When passion and habit long lie in company it is only slowly and with incredulity that habit awakens to finds its companion fled, itself alone.

It is a kind of blindness--poverty. We can only grope through life when we are poor, hitting and maiming ourselves against every angle.

Humiliation is a guest that only comes to those who have made ready his resting-place, and will give him a fair welcome. ... no one can disgrace you save yourself.

It is only to those who have never lived that death ever can seems beautiful.

I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman.

Nature I believe in. True art aims to, represent men and women, not as my little self would have them, but as they appear. My heroes and heroines I want not extreme types, all good or all bad; but human, mortal--partly good, partly bad. Realism I need. Pure mental abstractions have no significance for me.

Emulation is active virtue; envy is brooding malice.