Sydney, Lady Morgan

"Your letters are always to me fresher than flowers, without their fading so soon."

"Architecture is the printing-press of all ages, and gives a history of the state of the society in which it was erected; from the cromlech of the Druids to those toyshops of royal bad taste."

"Race and temperament go for so much in influencing opinion!"

"Vulgarity is setting store by "the things which are seen."

"You see, my good friend, how much we are the creatures of situation and circumstance, and with what pliant servility the mind resigns itself to the impressions of the senses, or the illusions of the imagination."

"It is quite deplorable to see how many rational creatures (or, at least, who are thought so) mistake suffering for sanctity, and think a sad face and a gloomy habit of mind, propitious offerings to that deity, whose works are all light, and lustre, and harmony, and loveliness."