“It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness.”

Our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes.

Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.

And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you.

Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.

Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.

I may do some good before I am dead–be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.

She was at that modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called having a fancy for. It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will.

O, you have torn my life all to pieces… made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again!

You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted!

Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

All romances end at marriage.

The offhand decision of some commonplace mind high in office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years.

It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession.

Some women’s love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can’t give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop’s license to receive it.

We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

Every word, every look, every action, and every smile can bring happiness to others.

The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity. It’s all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward.

The single thing which makes any man happiest is the realization that he has worked up to the limits of his ability, his capacity. It’s all the better, of course, if this work has made a contribution to knowledge, or toward moving the human race a little farther forward.

Freedom and happiness are won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.

You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.