Elizabeth ... had the prerogative of the rich that she could be generous with large sums and niggardly over small ones.

You are only young once. At the time it seems endless, and is gone in a flash; and then for a very long time you are old.

I seem to use this word 'kind' very frequently. When one is unhappy or anxious it is a quality one dwells on.

How dreadful it is that because of our wills we can never love anything without messing it around! We couldn’t even love a tree, a stone even; for sooner or later we should be pruning the tree or chipping a bit off the stone.

I have an idea that conscience impedes quite as many merits as faults, is a sort of alloy, a nickel which may prevent silver from bending but also prevents it from shining.

When I die, I hope to think I have annoyed a great many people.

Reason is a poor hand at prophecies.