"...Elinor saw nothing to censure in him but a propensity... ...of saying too much what he thought on every occasion without attention to persons or circumstances. In hastily forming and giving his opinion of other people, in sacrificing general politeness to the enjoyment of undivided attention where his heart was engaged, and in slighting too easily the forms of worldly propriety, he displayed a want of caution which Elinor could not approve..."

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

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"...at night, like chickens and curses, she came home to roost"

DH Lawrence

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"Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away."

Thomas Hardy

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"The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity"

Oscar Wilde

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"'I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late.'

'That's what every woman says.'

'How can you dare to use such words!' she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her. 'My God! Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?'"

Tess, Thomas Hardy

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"I don't know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it!"

An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde

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"He looked away, for that epicene tenderness of hers was too harrowing. Was it that which had broken the heart of the poor leader-writer; and was he to be the next one? . . . But Sue was so dear!. . .If he could only get over the sense of her sex, as she seemed to be able to do so easily of his, what a comrade she would make..."

Jude, Thomas Hardy