“It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us.”

“We know not whether laws be right Or whether laws be wrong All we know who lie in gaol Is that the walls are strong And each day is like a year A year whose days are long.”

“There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”

“Let those who have not walked as we have done,In the red fire of passion, those whose livesAre dull and colourless, in a word let those,If any such there be, who have not loved,Cast stones against you”

“The mimicry of passion is the most intolerable of all poses.”

“So much had been surrendered! And to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape (...)”

“The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.”