But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.

I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.

If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises.

...the figure near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honored, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.

If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?