Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom.

Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action should make up the sum of a man's life.

Everywhere bees go racing with the hours, / For every bee becomes a drunken lover, / Standing upon his head to sup the flowers.

The more one gardens, the more one learns; And the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows.

The true solitary ... will feel that he is himself only when he is alone; when he is in company he will feel that he perjures himself, prostitutes himself to the exactions of others; he will feel that time spent in company is time lost; he will be conscious only of his impatience to get back to his true life.

Ambition, old as mankind, the immemorial weakness of the strong.

Click, clack, click, clack, went their conversation, like so many knitting-needles, purl, plain, purl, plain, achieving a complex pattern of references, cross-references, Christian names, nicknames, and fleeting allusions.