Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Truth is oft Scattered in fragments round a stately pile Built half of error; and the eye's defect May breed too much denial.

Some persons are so provokingly phlegmatic that perhaps they should have stimulants.

Ideas are often poor ghosts; our sun-filled eyes cannot discern them; they pass athwart us in thin vapour, and cannot make themselves felt.

Ruin seize thee, ruthless King.

Your sex is capricious, you know.

From all we can gather, the votes are rather on the side of "The Mill" as a better book than “Adam.”

Inspired with gin and old memories.

No reason why this should end any more than a merry-go-round.

Fine tragedies can never become mere mummies.

Wherever the strength of a man's intellect, or moral sense, or affection brings him in opposition with the rules which society has sanctioned, there is renewed the conflict between Antigone and Creon.

No conception of religion as anything else than egoism turned heavenward.

I am so well now that a hearthrug would be as luxurious a couch as I should need and I defy anything short of a kettledrum or my conscience to keep me awake after a long day.

If I ever offerred incense to him it was because there was no other deity at hand and because I wanted some kind of worship pour passer le temps.

And in more than one case a person's happiness may be ruined by the confusion of ideas which took the form of principles.

The rest are infected with the disease they imagine in him.

The first impulse of a young and ingenuous mind is to withhold the slightest sanction from all that contains even a mixture of supposed error.

If one is to have freedom to write out of one's own varying unfolding self, and not be a machine always grinding out the same material or spinning the same sort of web, one cannot always write for the same public.

Dear Friend. No credit to me for my virtues as a refrigerant. I owe them all to a few lumps of ice which I carried away with me from that tremendous glacier of yours.

There are many wonderful mixtures in the world which are all alike called love.

His shoes will be dirty, but see that he wipes them.

I am an artist by my birth— By the same warrant that I am a woman.

You might look into her drawers when you would—always the same.

Surely these flowers keep happy watch—their breath Is their fond memory of the loving light.

Why, seeing how you long for the monster, I might ask a higher price.

6 May 1859: I have arrived at faith in the past, but not at faith in the future.

Steal the keys from snoring Destiny And make the prophets lie.

A creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her;

The joke appeared to him so good that, being left alone upon the scene, he continued at intervals to take his pipe from his mouth in order to wink at an imaginary audience and shake luxuriously with a silent, ventral laughter.

Bright February days have a stronger charm of hope about them than any other days in the year.

Downward root and upward eye, Shapen by the earth and sky.

Nay, you will never hide your soul from me; I’ve seen the jewels flash, and know ‘t is there

“Ah, now I see how it is you know Shakespeare and everything, and have learned so much since you left school; which always seemed to me witchcraft before—part of your general uncanniness,” said Lucy.

Eccola! Treat my work just as it suits you with regard to time.

Seriously preoccupied.

“Don’t laugh at me, Tom!” she burst out angrily; “I’m not a stupid. I know a great many things you don’t.”

Was never true love loved in vain, For truest love is highest gain.

"Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling. "Tell me seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of it—because you love me best." "It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it—because I love you best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation.

Among the blessings of love there is hardly one more exquisite than the sense that in uniting the beloved life to ours we can watch over its happiness, bring comfort where hardship was, and over memories of privation and suffering open the sweetest fountains of joy.

So absolute is our soul’s need of something hidden and uncertain for the maintenance of that doubt and hope and effort which are the breath of its life,

Lift your audience To see your vision, not trick forth a show To please the grossest taste of grossest numbers.

The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men.

But Adam had no sooner caught his imagination leaping forward in this way—making arrangements for an uncertain future—than he checked himself. “A pretty building I'm making, without either bricks or timber. I'm up i' the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation.”

We are like two secluded owls, wise with unfashionable wisdom.

6 February 1865: I suspect you have come to dislike letters, but until you say so, I must write now and then to gratify myself.

From the first a cool deliberate design.

“Yes, let us go,” said Harold, throwing down the newspaper.

Loud at taverns and private banquets.

But you may rely on it that no amount of horse-power would make me hurry over my book, so as not to do my best. If it is written fast, it will be because I can’t help writing it fast.