I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please.
Tell the angel who will watch over your life to pray now and then for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant to be equal to God, but who realized in all humility that supreme power and wisdom are in the hands of God alone.
To save a man and thereby to spare a father’s agony and a mother’s feelings is not to do a noble deed, it is but an act of humanity.
Your life story is a novel; and people, though they love novels wound between two yellow paper covers, are oddly suspicious of those which come to them in living vellum.
When a man resolves to avenge himself, he should first of all tear out the heart from his breast.
It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree.
That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?
What a fool I was, not to tear my heart out on the day when I resolved to avenge myself!
On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.
The mother is only really the mistress of her daughter upon the condition of continually representing herself to her as a model of wisdom and type of perfection.
The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow – so arbitrary are these transient laws.
God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.
Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.
If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.
Love is the most selfish of all the passions.
Kitty: I thought your ladyship was ill. I wanted to help you. Lady deWinter: I ill? Do you take me for a weak woman? When I am insulted I do not feel ill – I avenge myself. Do you hear?
There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.
I’m sure you’re very nice, but you’d be even nicer if you went away.
Your bitter memories still have time to turn into sweet ones.
Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.