After breakfast, determined to pass as little of the day as possible in company with Lady Lowborough, I quietly stole away from the company and retired to the library. Mr. Hargrave followed me thither, under...

I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.

I still preserve those relics of past sufferings and experience, like pillars of witness set up in travelling through the valve of life, to mark particular occurrences. The footsteps are obliterated now; the face of...

No, but still it is very unpleasant to live with such unimpressible, incomprehensible creatures. You cannot love them; and if you could, your love would be utterly thrown away: they could neither return it, nor...

I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I – of my friends as well in silence as in conversation.

There is perfect love in Heaven!

If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices.

But, God knows best, I concluded.

I have often wished in vain,’ said she, ‘for another’s judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the...

We often pity the poor, because they have no leisure to mourn their departed relatives, and necessity obliges them to labor through their severest afflictions: but is not active employment the best remedy for overwhelming...

Though solitude, endured too long,Bids youthful joys too soon decay,Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,And overclouds my noon of day;When kindly thoughts that would have way,Flow back discouraged to my breast;I know there is,...

She, however, attentively watched my looks, and her artist’s pride was gratified, no doubt, to read my heartfelt admiration in my eyes.

I have heard that, with some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater....

I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company – why – it will be...

That wish – that prayer – both men and women would have scorned me for – “But, Father, Thou wilt not despise!” I said, and felt that it was true.

If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues.

Farewell to thee! but not farewellTo all my fondest thoughts of thee:Within my heart they still shall dwell;And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Reading is my favourite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read.

Long have I dwelt forgotten hereIn pining woe and dull despair;This place of solitude and gloomMust be my dungeon and my tomb.

God is Infinite Wisdom, and Power, and Goodness – and LOVE; but if this idea is too vast for your human faculties – if your mind loses itself in its overwhelming infinitude, fix it on...

By his [God’s] help I will arise and address myself diligently to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I will endeavor to promote the welfare of those around me,...

But our wishes are like tinder: the flint and steel of circumstances are continually striking out sparks, which vanish immediately, unless they chance to fall upon the tinder of our wishes; then, they instantly ignite,...

But this gives no proper idea of my feelings at all; and no one that has not lived such a retired stationary life as mine, can possibly imagine what they were: hardly even if he...

A few cold words on yonder stone, A corpse as cold as they can be -­ Vain words, and mouldering dust, alone -­ Can this be all that’s left of thee? O, no! thy spirit...

One bright day in the last week of February, I was walking in the park, enjoying the threefold luxury of solitude, a book, and pleasant weather.

No one can be happy in eternal solitude.

I may be permitted, like the doctors, to cure a greater evil by a less, for I shall not fall seriously in love with the young widow, I think, nor she with me – that’s...

I was sorry for her; I was amazed, disgusted at her heartless vanity; I wondered why so much beauty should be given to those who made so bad a use of it, and denied to...