“It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.”

“All art is quite useless.”

— Oscar Wilde《The Picture of Dorian Gray》

“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”

— Oscar Wilde《The Picture of Dorian Gray》

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

— William Shakespeare《Hamlet》

“Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”

— William Shakespeare《Hamlet》

“Conceit spoils the finest genius.”

— Louisa May Alcott《Little Women》

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

— Louisa May Alcott《Little Women》

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

— Herman Melville《Moby-Dick》

“She had been deeply impressed with the idea of French spies at some time in her life; and the notion could never be fairly eradicated, but sprang up again from time to time.”

— Elizabeth Gaskell《Cranford》

“But here was a man who had never done anything but good in his life, and was at the bar of justice charged with crime merely because some cold-blooded mercenaries thought he was interfering with their business!”

— Arthur Cheney Train《By Advice of Counsel》

“Those eyes and that smile contained all the cruel cynicism that seethes below the surface of a sophisticated and degenerate race, and for the first time in her life Valeria experienced fear of a man.”

— Robert E. Howard《Red Nails》

“He is to be pitied, to tell the truth, in his coming into the world as a king, for he is but a man--and having to waste himself on a pack of nonsense instead of sticking to our art, in which he makes good way.”

— Alexandre Dumas《The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty》

“But nature itself, she thought, would be no better than a vast blank, if the mind of the observer did not supply it with an animating soul.”

— William Godwin《Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman》