“No man can begin to mould himself on a faith or an idea without rising to a higher order of experience.”

“A man with an affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily snapping and quarreling without any sense of alienation.”

“One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.”

“Probabilities—the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.”

“Dorothea, he said to himself, was for ever enthroned in his soul: no other woman could sit higher than her footstool...”

“but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings.”

“There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.”