I'm sitting on the stile, Mary

Surely it is hardly worthwhile to take up a pursuit merely to please other people.

You see Georgy’s the beauty and Carry’s the wit, and I ought to be the good one, but then I am such a liar.

I am persuaded one ought not to set one's heart earnestly on any one pursuit in this world, if one wishes to preserve any of the energy of youth beyond its first years.

I am what Doctor Johnson would call a "compendious epitome" of all the virtues—in one volume very neatly bound, and very rare—there being but one copy extant.

In short, the world owns that we are the best-looking family in England and we are pretty well disposed to agree.

What a spirit of contradiction possesses one's kind friends! I, who have never done anything, am supposed to be capable of doing much; it is a great lesson, which I shall lay to heart. I will never give the measure of my shallowness; I …