Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than I can bear!

It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.

And yet to every bad there is a worse.

Dialect words are those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.

Some women's love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can't give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop's license to receive it.

I have felt lately, more and more, that my present way of living is bad in every respect.