“Nothing perhaps increases by indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading, especially under such opportunities of gratifying it.”

“Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.”

“Of all the train, none escaped except Wamba, who showed upon the occasion much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense.”

“...he at no time thought himself out of the Black Douglas's reach, any more than the good Christian supposes himself out of reach of the wiles of the devil; while every new temptation, instead of confirming his hope, seems to announce that the immediate retreat of the Evil One will be followed by some new attack yet more cunningly devised.”

“Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langour, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance.”

“Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!”

“...she felt in her mind the consciousness that she was entitled to hold a higher rank from her merit, than the arbitrary despotism of religious prejudice permitted her to aspire to.”