“Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures.”

“I have thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to me in preserving me in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life.”

— Mary Rowlandson《Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson》

“But ere that time he had studied to good effect, and not books alone, but the world around him too, and the world within.”

— Dante Alighieri《The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri》

“Time and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away.”

— Jack London《The Call of the Wild》

“And at last he got to the mines, and he was condemned to stay there for life--for life, just for writing a good, noble, splendid book.”

— Edith Nesbit《The Railway Children》

“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》

“Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am in a position to give you good advice—and you would mind what I say.”

— Ivan Turgenev《The Torrents of Spring》

“DEAR DICK, At what time of life may a man think himself exempted from the necessity of sacrificing his repose to the punctilios of a contemptible world?”

— Tobias Smollett《The Expedition of Humphry Clinker》

“It is better to honor a good man in life than to worship him after he is dead.”

— José Rizal《Rizal's own story of his life》

“The Soul is brought by the Truth to a knowledge of the Heavenly Life (Coelia), and is led, through repentance, to seek forgiveness and to desire a holier life.”

— Edmund Spenser《Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I》

“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》

“How strange it is, that a fool or a knave, with riches, should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a wise man in poverty!”

— Ann Radcliffe《The Mysteries of Udolpho》