It was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity

Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.

Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.

We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all.

Measurement of life should be proportioned rather to the intensity of the experience than to its actual length.

...our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes

You could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then.