“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”

My sweetheart is to me more than a coined hemisphere.

For there is no folly so great as keeping one’s sorrows hidden.

No young novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens.

Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?

What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife?

But the school in which good training is most practiced will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars.

I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . .

And though it is much to be a nobleman, it is more to be a gentleman.

The greatest mistake any man ever made is to suppose that the good things of the world are not worth the winning.

Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates.

A small dainty task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

It’s dogged as does it. It ain’t thinking about it.

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,–cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Above all else, never think you’re not good enough.

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading.

Keep your morale high, in spite of setbacks. At the end you are bound to succeed.

The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against disbelief.

You’ve been running so fast, through endless wants that slowing down seems tough.

He said that if culture is a house, then language was the key to the front door; to all the rooms inside. Without it, he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity.

My biggest concern is always the students who are working toward a certain career – when they limit themselves to just that one option. They need to know that the world is huge – it’s an ocean, and there are so many options. It’s not the end of the world if they don’t get to pursue an apparent childhood dream.

If this should end in fire come, fill this desire.