"Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them; and if such an occasion should never present itself, comfort your mind with this reflection, that though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least, will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result."

"You might as well sell yourself to slavery at once, as marry man you dislike."

"And you thought to rob me of my son too, and bring him up to be a dirty Yankee tradesman, or a low, beggarly painter?" "Yes, to obviate his becoming such a gentleman as his father."

"God will judge us by our own thoughts and deeds, not by what others say about us."

"A hardness such as this is taught by rough experience and despair alone."

"Though I hate him from my heart, and should rejoice at any calamity that could befall him, I'll leave him to God; and though I abhor my own life, I'll leave that, too, to Him that gave it."

"I will not allow myself to be worse than my fellows."

"Revenge! No — what good would that do? — it would make him no better, and me no happier."

"Forgetfulness is not to be purchased with a wish; and I cannot bestow my esteem on all who desire it, unless they deserve it too."

"God have mercy on his miserable soul! and make him see and feel his guilt — I ask no other vengeance! If he could but fully know and truly feel my wrongs I should be well avenged, and I could freely pardon all."

"Chess-players are so unsociable, they are no company for any but themselves."

"If you had no higher motive than the approval of your fellow mortal, it would do you little good."

"I sometimes think she has no feeling at all; and then I go on till she cries — and that satisfies me."

"No generous mind delights to oppress the weak, but rather to cherish and protect."

"A man must have something to grumble about; and if he can’t complain that his wife harries him to death with her perversity and ill-humour, he must complain that she wears him out with her kindness and gentleness."

"Adoration isn’t love. I adore Annabella, but I don’t love her; and I love thee, Milicent, but I don’t adore thee."

"How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!"

"Life and hope must cease together."

"What the world stigmatizes as romantic, is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed; for, if the generous ideas of youth are too often over-clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false."

"I know not whether, at the time, it was not for him rather than myself that I blushed; for, since he and I are one, I so identify myself with him, that I feel his degradation, his failings, and transgressions as my own; I blush for him, I fear for him; I repent for him, weep, pray, and feel for him as for myself; but I cannot act for him; and hence, I must be and I am, debased, contaminated by the union, both in my own eyes, and in the actual truth."

"A burst of passion is a fine rousing thing upon occasion, Helen, and a flood of tears is marvellously affecting, but, when indulged too often, they are both deuced plaguy things for spoiling one's beauty and tiring out one's friends."

"Friends as we are, we would willingly keep your failings to ourselves — even from ourselves if we could, unless by knowing them we could deliver you from them."

"You're at that game of threatening me with the loss of your affection again, are you? I think it couldn't have been very genuine stuff to begin with, if it's so easily demolished."

"Instead of combating my slight prejudice against you as uncharitable, I mean to cherish it, until I am convinced that I have no reason to distrust this kind, insinuating friendship you are so anxious to push upon me."

"Intimate acquaintance must precede real friendship."

"Whatever my husband's faults may be, it can only aggravate the evil for me to hear them from a stranger's lips."

"Those, whose time is fully occupied, seldom complain of solitude."

"His idea of a wife is a thing to love one devotedly, and to stay at home — to wait upon her husband, and amuse him and minister to his comfort in every possible way, while he chooses to stay with her; and, when he is absent, to attend to his interests, domestic or otherwise, and patiently wait his return; no matter how he may be occupied in the meantime."

"I can't love it — what is there to love? It can't love me — or you either; it can't understand a single word you say to it, or feel one spark of gratitude for all your kindness. Wait till it can show some little affection for me, and then I'll see about loving it. At present it is nothing more than a little selfish, senseless sensualist, and if you see anything adorable in it, it's all very well — I only wonder how you can."

"Where hope rises fear must lurk behind."

"It is a woman's nature to be constant — to love one and one only, blindly, tenderly, and for ever."

"You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again."

"I ever give a thought to another, you may well spare it, for those fancies are here and gone like a flash of lightning, while my love for you burns on steadily, and for ever, like the sun."

"He knows he is my sun, but when he chooses to withhold his light, he would have my sky to be all darkness; he cannot bear that I should have a moon to mitigate the deprivation."

"To wheedle and coax is safer than to command."

"The greater the happiness that nature sets before me, the more I lament that he is not here to taste it: the greater the bliss we might enjoy together, the more I feel our present wretchedness apart."

"If your wife gives you her heart, you must take it, thankfully, and use it well, and not pull it in pieces, and laugh in her face, because she cannot snatch it away."

"It is quite possible to be a good Christian without ceasing to be a happy, merry-hearted man."

"All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil, till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame."

"Of him to whom less is given, less will be required, but our utmost exertions are required of us all."

"The more you loved your God the more deep and pure and true would be your love to me."

"I think your piety one of your greatest charms; but then, like all other good things, it may be carried too far. To my thinking, a woman's religion ought not to lessen her devotion to her earthly lord. She should have enough to purify and etherealise her soul, but not enough to refine away her heart, and raise her above all human sympathies."

"Since I love him so much, I can easily forgive him for loving himself."

"There is always a 'but' in this imperfect world."

"I do believe a young lady can't be too careful who she marries."

"I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other; besides, I like to enjoy my life at all sides and ends, which cannot be done by one that suffers himself to be the slave of a single propensity."

"The demon of drink was as black as the demon of play, and nearly as hard to get rid of — especially as his kind friends did all they could to second the promptings of his own insatiable cravings."

"What can't be cured must be endured."

"At your time of life, it's love that rules the roast: at mine, it's solid, serviceable gold."

"You will form a very inadequate estimate of a man's character, if you judge by what a fond sister says of him. The worst of them generally know how to hide their misdeeds from their sisters' eyes, and their mother's, too."