"Emma" by Jane Austen

Kindle edition here.

• "a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time"
• "It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things"
• "from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself"
• "a fanciful, troublesome creature!"
• ""And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?— I pity you.—I thought you cleverer—for, depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it."
• "He had never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that"
• "a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it"