Midori

“I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”
― George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

“It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch