"My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something: trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive."
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will."
"The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eye."
"Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour ... If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?"
"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!"