We have only to change the point of view and the greatest action looks mean.

When a man is in love with one woman in a family, it is astonishing how fond he becomes of every person connected with it.

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

If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?

He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.

Oh, those women! They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of their ugliest thoughts.

People hate as they love, unreasonably.