I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.

The mystery which underlies the beauty of women is never raised above the reach of all expression until it has claimed kindred with the deeper mystery in our own souls.

The fool's crime is the crime that is found out and the wise man's crime is the crime that is not found out.

I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.

The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.

But, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling back?

I roused myself from the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading, and left my chambers to meet the cool night air in the suburbs.

Miss Fairlie laughed with a ready good-humour, which broke out as brightly as if it had been part of the sunshine above us…

Try not to turn your mind into your worst enemy of progress.

I'd rather feel something for real than pretend it's not what it is. Which Zen guy said "If you want to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water"?

If I got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want to slip into a round hole, you must first make a ball of yourself; that's where it is.

I think there is this sensation of being deprived of something that you are entitled to have.

Though my sight be lost, I do not yet lose my faith: when I can no longer see, I can still believe.

Grant us peace, Almighty Father, so to pray as to deserve to be heard.

We Poles are and will remain convinced Europeans. For us, Europe is a community of the diversity of nations. No mishmash.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.

Never affirm anything unless you are sure it is true.

As you awaken to your divine nature, you'll begin to appreciate beauty in everything you see, touch and experience.