No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes

And when we are writing the life of a woman, we may, it is agreed, waive our demand for action, and substitute love instead. Love, the poet has said, is a woman's whole existence.

I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don't budge though armies cross them.

It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road.

Half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew for no one was ever for a second taken in.

Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art.

Fear no more, says the heart, committing its burden to some sea, which sighs collectively for all sorrows, and renews, begins, collects, lets fall