I do believe a young lady can’t be too careful who she marries.
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.
A girl’s affections should never be won unsought.
There is perfect love in heaven!
If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices.
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.
Adieu! but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart. And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?
The end of Religion is not to teach us how to die, but how to live...
My heart is too thoroughly dried to be broken in a hurry, and I mean to live as long as I can.
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 cannot get him to write or speak in real, solid earnest. I don’t much mind it now, but if it be always so, what shall I do with the serious part of myself?
What the world stigmatizes as romantic is often more nearly allied to the truth than is commonly supposed.
All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.
My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring and carried aloft on the wings of the breeze.
Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honor with hers?
I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.
No; for instead of delivering myself up to the full enjoyment of the as others do, I am always troubling my head about how I could produce the same effect upon canvas; and as that can never be done, it is mere vanity and vexation of spirit.
Because I imagine there must be only a very, very few men in the world, that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me.
He never could have loved me, or he would not have resigned me so willingly.
But, God knows best, I concluded.