If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how quick and easy ruin is.

I will bring order from chaos and light from darkness.

Let us be very gentle with our neighbors' failings, and forgive our friends their debts as we hope ourselves to be forgiven.

I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own.

True love is better than glory.

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.

Taste is something quite different from fashion, superior to fashion.