There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves and fibres and slowly built-up cells, in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.
Man is a being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex, multiform creature that bears within itself strange legacies of thought and passion, and whose very flesh is tainted with the monstrous maladies of the dead.
As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter she is perfectly satisfied.
There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies.
Public and private life are different things. They have different laws and move on different lines.
When one is placed in the position of guardian one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It's one's duty to do so.
I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing.
An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself.
If the lower classes don't set us a good example what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.