All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.

God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so...

I held a brief debate with myself as to whether I should change my ordinary attire for something smarter. At last I concluded it would be a waste of labour. “Doubtless,” though I, “she is...

Where my soul went during that swoon I cannot tell. Whatever she saw, or wherever she travelled in her trance on that strange night she kept her own secret; never whispering a word to Memory,...

I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets; and for ever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of...

She bit me. She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her…She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart.” Richard mason

Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is around us, for it is everywhere.

A large class of readers … will suffer greatly from the introduction into the pages of this work of words printed with all their letters, which it has become the custom to represent by the...

Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of...

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.

But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master–something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. He may lay down rules and...

Swifts, on a fine morning in May, flying this way, that way, sailing around at a great hight, perfectly happily. Then, one leaps onto the back of another, grasps tightly and forgetting to fly they...

Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea.

To toil, to think, to long, to grieve,—Is such my future fate?The morn was dreary, must the eveBe also desolate?

Then, learn from me not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I...

Unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.

Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.

I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma’am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked.””We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and...

I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority...

You have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose then, your heart has been weeping blood?

If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!

My feelings towards it can only be paralleled by that of a doting parent towards an idiot child.

Poverty, for me, is synonymous with degradation.

Two hot, close rooms thus became my world; and a crippled old woman, my mistress, my friend, my all. Her service was my duty – her pain, my suffering – her relief, my hope –...

His veins were dark with a vivid belladonna tincture, the essence of jealousy.

It does good to no woman to be flattered [by a man] who does not intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which,...

has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly, ‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond, ‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!

I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.

I believe – I daily find it proved – that we can get nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame, or through...

Belgium! name unromantic and unpoetic, yet name that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound, in my heart an echo, such as no other assemblage of syllables, however sweet or classic, can produce. Belgium!...

This little man was of the order of beings who must not be opposed, unless you possessed an all-dominant force sufficient to crush him at once.

Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear.

Am I a liar in your eyes?” he asked passionately. “Little skeptic, you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None:...

Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing.

Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always hide-tide, nor –thank Heaven!–always Storm.

I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes.

No: I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.””I ask why? I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy of you.”She stood on the hearth; she was pale as the white...

I replied that I did not quite know what my ailment had been, but that I had certainly suffered a good deal especially in mind. Further, on this subject, I did not consider it advisable...

But when one does not complain, and when one wants to master oneself with a tyrant’s grip — one’s faculties rise in revolt — and one pays for outward calm with an almost unbearable inner...

How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.

I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life...

Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don’t shriek...

Friendship however is a plant which cannot be forced — true friendship is no gourd spring up in a night and withering in a day.

This pure little drop from a pure little source was too sweet: it penetrated deep, and subdued the heart

All the room darkened and my heart again sank; inexpressible sadness weighed it down

Never!” declared Reason.I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never – never – oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope; she could not rest unless I...

I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last.

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and...

You would say you don’t see it: at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-by, what you express with that organ, I am quick at interpreting its language).