The crown of literature is poetry.

The value of culture is its effect on character. It avails nothing unless it ennobles and strengthens that. Its use is for life. Its aim is not beauty but goodness.

It is astonishing how many books I find there is no need for me to read at all.

He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.

If nobody spoke unless he had something to say, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.

I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future.