on behalf of the author – Character Quotes

Life at worst or best was beautiful—had always been so.

Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders.

To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive.

No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.

There are crises in all men's lives when they waver between the strict fulfilment of justice and duty and the great possibilities for personal happiness which another line of conduct seems to assure.

Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions.

Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin.
It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

Mort was hurt by this. It was one thing not to want to marry someone, but quite another to be told they didn't want to marry you.

It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an unripe time, a time of shallow moods and sickly thoughts. Why had he worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him.

Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

He felt as if the world were not quite so bad with such a good man in it.

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

When he talked, she heard the same voice, and discerned the same mind.