Women are so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplaced kindness.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

That man's silence is wonderful to listen to.

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.

Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.

The defective can be more than the entire.

We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more.