It is a woman, and only a woman, — a woman all by herself, if she likes, and without any man to help her, — who can turn a house into a home.

My great panacea for making society at once better and more enjoyable would be to cultivate greater sincerity.

Ours is the old, old story of every uprising race or class or order. The work of elevation must be wrought by ourselves or not at all.

Love naturally reverses the idea of obedience, and causes the struggle between any two who truly love each other to be, not who shall command, but who shall yield.

I could discern clearly, even at that early age, the essential difference between people who are kind to dogs and people who really love them.

Morality may exist in an atheist without any religion, and in a theist with a religion quite unspiritual.

The nest may be constructed, so far as the sticks go, by the male bird; but only the hen can line it with moss and down!

[Women's] duty is nothing else than the fulfilment [sic] of the whole moral law, the attainment of every human virtue.

Science is but a mere heap of facts, not a golden chain of truths, if we refuse to link it to the throne of God.

He who does most to cure woman of her weakness, her frivolity, and her servility will likewise at the same stroke do most to cure man of his brutality, his selfishness and his sensuality.

Pleasures of the mind have this advantage,--they never cloy nor wear themselves out, but increase by employment.

And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

Everyone has hardship in their life. Everyone has pain.

Decision making can sometimes seem like inner civil war.

Participating in Society in not a thing one can do naturally; one has to rehearse for it.

Vengeance is without foresight.

When I get this kind of support, I feel validated in my decision to stand up for myself.

Dedication to goodness-dedication in response to an inner moral mandate rather than external restraint-was both the antidote to the pain and the source of great happiness.

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man That function is smothered in surmise, And nothing is but what is not.