One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

Everyone confesses in the abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do …

In the old times, women did not get their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better worth writing than the men's.