The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

If you had told Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would have been pleased, witch as she was.

An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.

Dare and the world always yields; or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and it will succumb.

Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, 'To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.'

Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.

And in those varieties of pain of which we spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us! What myriads of women have cried over it, to be sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that teaplant; and with a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the fancy may conjure up and assemble round the teapot and cup!