"The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope."

“The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset — that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun.”

“Oh Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!”

“Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle”

“If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: "Byron is dead!”

“When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.”

“A positive engagement to marry a certain person at a certain time, at all haps and hazards, I have always considered the most ridiculous thing on earth.”