I believe that people are almost always better than their neighbors think they are," said Dorothea.

Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness that she was being looked at. She was by nature an actress of parts that entered into her physique: she even acted her own character, and so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own.)

That is one reason why I did not like the pictures here, dear uncle—which you think me stupid about. I used to come from the village with all that dirt and coarse ugliness like a pain within me, and the simpering pictures in the drawing-room seemed to me like a wicked attempt to find delight in what is false

so much subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of blazonry or clock-face for it.

the philanthropic banker his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town that some called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to the resources of their vocabulary;

is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with a toilet, and never see the great soul in a man's face.

Who knows that about anybody?

so much that seems to me a consecration of ugliness rather than beauty.

No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and useful, Mary. Beauty is of very little consequence in reality

But in that curious compound, the feminine character, it may easily happen that the flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellent ingredients;

the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.

the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection.